


Dog Teeth

by Saralena



Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-04
Updated: 2015-06-15
Packaged: 2018-02-03 08:41:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 21
Words: 60,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1738298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saralena/pseuds/Saralena
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the death of her parents, Elena struggles to get back into the routine of her old life. When she starts dating Stefan, she thinks things are finally looking up. However, when Stefan's older brother pays a visit to town, Elena finds her life once again falling into darkness. WARNING: After the first couple chapters, it starts to deal with REALLY dark themes (rape/abuse etc..)<br/>NOTE: This story was originally posted on fanfiction.net, but it got deleted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Whether you're a new reader, or an old reader from when this was posted on fanfiction.net, I hope you enjoy my story. :)  
> If you like it, remember to like and review. Thank you. :)

Though I reached to use the knocker, the door was already open an inch, and swung in as soon as I put pressure on it. There was a moment of hesitation mixed with a sliver of confusion. Usually there was something wrong when people just left their front doors not only unlocked, but open, right?

I leaned in, craning my neck around the partially open door to catch a glimpse of the dim room beyond.

“Stefan?” My voice echoed, and I took a cautious step inside. I waited, held my breath, and still got no reply. I felt my feet moving forward, as if they were acting on their own, deeper into the house.

Dark. That’s how I would describe it. Dark, wood walls, and dark, wood floors. Enormous shadows and little, flickering reflections of light from the candles littered around the hall.

I saw his school bag slouched on a chair. Some of its contents had fallen out, and were scattered on the nearby floorboard, as if the bag had been tossed carelessly, or thrown. I felt a bullet of ice shoot down my spine, and little rows of goose bumps pump their way up my arms. Something felt off.

“Stefan?” I tried his name again, because although I hadn’t received an answer the first time, the house didn’t feel completely empty.

I rounded the corner, and my subconscious fear dissolved as my mouth dropped open. I sucked in a small breath at the sight in front of me; an enormous stone fireplace, its mantle stretching to the high ceiling, flooded by the light of the cathedral windows around it. The ground was an organized mess of beautifully detailed carpets, and plush red furniture filled the remaining spaces. I wondered if maybe I’d come to the wrong house. Did Stefan really live in such a lavish place?

I let the quiet of the home settle around me until the silence built up a stinging pressure in my ears. If Stefan wasn’t here, I should leave.

I turned abruptly, but before I could make a move to leave through the open exit, a sound caught my ears. I froze, and locked my eyes with the sunny porch beyond the door. I felt my chest tighten, and for a moment I felt an absurd fear.

Suddenly, a black storm of movement and sound fired towards me from outside, and my scream caught in my throat. I spun around, attempting to stumble out of the crazed crow’s path, and lost sight of it when I found myself nose to nose with a stone cold glare.

I felt my heart trip over itself in my chest, and I jumped back a little. In a flash of terror, the mix between a scream and a sharp gasp scrambling together in my throat came out as nothing more than a silent choke.

The emotionless face of the man softened into a smirk. His head cocked to the side and his eyes narrowed, the sneer on his lips stretching into something more sinister and much more arrogant.

“I-I’m sorry for barging in,” My voice shook, and my phrase sounded less like solid words and more like a breathy whisper. The heart in my chest still beat ferociously, despite the rickety breaths I’d already managed to inhale in an attempt to calm it. “The door w-was open...” My voice trailed off as I cast a quick glance over my shoulder. The heavy door was shut tight.

“You must be Elena.” The man’s voice grounded me back to the moment, and I turned around to meet his eyes. They looked less sinister than the second before, just a delicate, faded blue catching in the candlelight that danced around us. He kept my gaze as the muscles in his face relaxed into a softer, more inviting smile, and made no move to distance himself from me.

“I’m Damon—Stefan’s brother.” The man’s stare made an almost unnoticeable sweep of my body before returning to my face, and his smile widened.

“He… didn’t tell me he had a brother.”

“Well, Stefan’s not one to brag. Please—come.” He finally moved from his grounded spot in the entranceway, and reached an arm around my shoulders, ushering me into the fireplace room. “I’m sure Stefan will be along any second.”

I felt my uneasiness start to die down as we padded into the room, and our footsteps fell in time with one another. I was once again taken aback by the room, and I tipped my chin up to look at the arched ceiling.

“Wow. This is your living room?”

“Living room. Parlor. Sotheby’s auction. It’s a little kitschy for my taste.” I moved my curtain of hair behind one ear as he spoke, and felt my own lips melting into a slight, yet astonished smile. The room, no, the whole house, was a work of art.

“I see why my brother’s so smitten.” His next set of words bumped me out of my trance, and I raised an eyebrow in reply.

“It’s about time. For a while there, I never thought he’d get over the last one.” A sigh graced his lips, and a faint crease appeared between his brows. “Nearly destroyed him.”

“The last one?” My voice hooked on a note of uncertainty, confusion.

“Yeah, Katherine. His girlfriend?” I bit my lip, gave the slightest shake of my head. “Oh, you two haven’t had the awkward exes conversation yet…”

“Nope.”

“Oops… Well, I’m sure it’ll come up now. Or maybe he didn’t want to tell you because he didn’t want you to think he was on the rebound.”

I shifted uncomfortably at his words, and focused my glance over his shoulder. I felt my cheeks burn, but with what? Embarrassment? Or anger at the fact that I might actually be nothing more than a rebound girl?

“We all know how those relationships end, Elena.”

“You say it like every relationship is doomed to end.” I turned back to him, rolled back my shoulders as I spoke and tried to make my voice sound more confident than I felt.

“I’m a fatalist.” He smiled again, warmly, letting me know it was a joke. Then, without turning around or so much as breaking our stare, he murmured, “Hello, Stefan.”

I whipped around, and there he stood. Though I immediately brightened, and felt the last trace of uncertainty or fear vanish from my head, the atmosphere in the room felt a hundred times heavier.

“Elena. I didn’t know you were coming over.” Stefan didn’t so much as glance over at me. His eyes were dark, glued viciously to the back of Damon’s head, and his broad shoulders were hunched over. Angry, tense, ready to snap, and pounce, and fight. I tried to brush his stance off, quickly consoling myself that I’d just caught him off guard at the wrong time. So I kept my smile, and the bubbly step in my walk, and continued towards him.

“I know, I should’ve called. I just—”

“Oh, don’t be silly.” Damon cut me off, and quickly fell in step with me again. “You’re welcome any time. Isn’t she, Stefan?”

When he didn’t answer, Damon shot me a sideways glance, and I noticed that his smile had dissolved back into that cocky smirk from before.

“You know, I should break out the family photo albums,” He turned to face me full-on, and reached out to put a gentle hand on my arm. “or some home movies. But, I have to warn you, he wasn’t always such a looker.” He laughed at his own joke, and I joined him, trying to lift the tension that was rapidly settling over the room like a suffocating smoke.

“Thank you for stopping by, Elena. Nice to see you.” In unison, our heads shot back up to Stefan. He spoke to me, but his voice was ice cold, and his burning glare never left Damon. I wondered whether he was joking, or just in a really crappy mood. There was an awkward pause, and I bit the inside of my cheek.

“Yeah, I should probably go...” I took in a deep breath, stretched out the syllables of my sentence as I tried to catch Stefan’s eyes. With no success, I turned to the other boy at my side. “It was nice to meet you, Damon.”

Damon’s face became all serious for a moment, and he stooped down so we were at eye level, those sky eyes piercing my own.

“Great meeting you too, Elena.” Without breaking eye contact, he took a firm hold of my hand and brought it up to his lips, smiled as he kissed me. His mouth was warm, and soft against my skin. I felt an excited flutter stir in the pit of my stomach and, flustered, ripped my hand away all too quickly.

I went to leave, yet Stefan stood blocking the doorway. Still as a statue, his expression definitely harder than one. It was as if I didn’t even exist. All of his attention was focused on Damon.

“Stefan?” A muscle twitched in his jaw, and his eyebrows knit more closely together.

“ _Stefan?_ ” My voice finally seemed to register and he shifted to the side to let me pass without so much as a goodbye. A spark of instant frustration flickered in me, and it took quite a bit of my strength not to roll my eyes. Having a bad day or not, he had no reason to be rude. I brushed past him and strode out the door in a couple clean steps, letting the heavy slab of wood slam with just a slight bit of spunk behind me.

              

* * *

 

By the next day, I still hadn’t heard anything from Stefan. It wasn’t like we had each other’s cell numbers anyways. That’s what I was planning on getting when I went to his house the previous day. I thought maybe we could chat, and exchange numbers, and then send flirty texts until we spoke in person. I shouldn’t have been surprised that things didn’t exactly go as planned. After all, I wasn’t exactly a relationship expert. All I’d ever had before was Matt, and he and Stefan were as different as day and night. Open and cheerful, where Stefan was mysterious and brooding… clean-cut and way too nice of a person, while Stefan seemed to have a darker side.

Nonetheless, I arrived at school with a chip on my shoulder, which continued to stay there through all my classes, especially when I saw Stefan’s empty seat in history. I’d never been one to hold a grudge though, so by the time evening hit, my determination to keep up my annoyance act had rendered me exhausted. Maybe I just wasn’t ready for a new relationship. If I could barely handle getting the cold shoulder from a boy who I talked to, what, like three times, how was I supposed to actually deal with all the baggage that came with a real relationship? I tried voicing those exact thoughts to my best friends, but all they kept telling me to do was to just relax, let loose, and go for it.

Later that night I was gathered in central Mystic Falls with the rest of the town. There was supposed to be a comet, a giant flaming rock that streaks across the sky only once every few hundred years. I swear this town would find an excuse to make some cheesy celebration out of anything. My resolutions and top priorities were to get back to my old self, but I just wasn’t in the mood to be out in a field making a big deal about some shooting star.

“Hi.” Stefan’s voice caught me off guard— that was for sure. And while Caroline was all smiles, dragging Bonnie away from her place at my side to give us the privacy to speak, I was more than a little reluctant.

“Hi.”

Stefan sighed, and brought one of his hands around to rub the back of his neck.

“I’m sorry about yesterday. I wasn’t being myself.”

“You seem to spend a lot of time apologizing.” My interest was piqued, I wasn’t exactly planning on him approaching me on what had happened, as he had seemed to have make it pretty clear that he wasn’t interested.

“Yesterday wasn’t about you, okay?”

I nodded, finally connecting my gaze with his.

“You didn’t tell me that you had a brother.”

“We’re not close. He came to town unexpectedly.”

I felt myself relax a little bit. So he had some deep-rooted family issues that turned up at a bad time, which I guessed explained his tense composure the previous day. I’d been overreacting, again, like I always do. I was getting as bad as Caroline. I shouldn’t let my insecurities get the best of me. I chose my next words carefully, and spoke them even slower.

“Damon… he also mentioned your ex girlfriend… Katherine?” Stefan stiffened, and I felt the space between us become icy and tension-filled.

“The past is the past, Elena. You should stay away from my brother.”

* * *

 

Much later, when the sky was just a sheet of black silk, I found myself winding back up the porch to the boarding house. I rang the bell this time, instead of just barging in like before, and felt a rush of relief when the door swung open. Stefan looked surprised, but he smiled down at me all the same. Behind him, the hallway was bathed in soft yellow light, and all the creeping shadows had been washed away by the warm glow.

My confidence was back, or at least I had convinced myself it was. My pulse was racing, and I even think my words quavered a little as I spoke, but something told me I was doing the right thing. The only way to move on with my life was to keep pressing forward.

Stefan followed me out onto the porch. Watched me with his big, gentle eyes, and listened as I poured my heart out to him. After that he’d presented me with a gift—a beautiful locket filled with nice smelling herbs. He was saying how if I would always wear the necklace, my safety could be guaranteed, but as he spoke, I found myself not even really truly listening to what he was saying. In his presence, I just felt warm, and safe, and happy. Stefan was like a fresh new beginning. He had his problems, and his ups and downs, like any normal human being did, but being around him just made me feel like I had nothing to fear. So, as he started to lean towards me, his head tilted ever so slightly to the side, I was the one to perch up and close the rest of the distance between us.

It was the sweetest of kisses. So delicate I could barely even tell it happened. Stefan’s hand cupping my cheek felt as slight as a butterfly kiss, and before I knew it he had pulled away. His touch had left me dizzy and lightheaded and desperately craving something closer and deeper and longer.

“Night, Elena.” His words were soft as a lullaby, and I replayed them over and over in my head as I tossed around in my sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

After school the next day, Bonnie and I were making our way down to the football field for cheer practice. I hadn't so much as stretched all summer, so it felt weird to be in the uniform again. I paused at the top of the hill, watching the lines of girls already starting to warm up on the field.

"Are you going to be okay?" Bonnie wrapped an arm around my waist and I leaned over to rest my head on her shoulder. Even though it had been months since the death of my parents, everything I did, everyone I saw, and everywhere I went still reminded me of them, and of course it would be wrong to forget. But I had to start moving on, or rather moving back to my old life. Old Elena was fun. She liked parties and cheerleading and making out with Matt in the locker rooms between practice.

"Me and Stefan kissed last night." The words came out suddenly, surprising myself as well as Bonnie, who immediately pulled away from the hug and presented me with one of her biggest smiles.

"Me and Care have totally been calling this since that party last week! You two make, like, the hottest couple."

"He gave this to me too." Even though I was in uniform, I still had Stefan's silver necklace laced lightly around my throat. Bonnie leaned forward and picked it off the front of my shirt, letting the pendant roll around in the palm of her hand.

"Wow, it's gorgeous. And it looks really old—like some family heirloom or something. Guess you guys are definitely official now."

I nodded in response, something at the pit of my stomach wondering how Matt would take the blow. We'd been broken up for a few months, but he was still one of my oldest friends and it was quite apparent that he still possessed feelings for me. I let out a breath and forced myself to shove any negative or anxiety-inducing thoughts down my throat, and let them settle in a dark corner of my core where I wouldn't be able to revisit them until later. There was only time for positivity in cheer practice, after all.

"I'll race you down the hill, Bon!" I took a head start as soon as the words escaped my mouth, and started to spring down the steep little hill, soon feeling the ground level out beneath my feet as I joined the rest of the cheer squad. Bonnie came in panting beside me but a moment later, jokingly mumbling something about me being a dirty rotten cheater.

The two of us sat on a clean-cut patch of grass to start our stretches, and Bonnie attempted to check her text messages and she reached to touch her toes.

"No word from Caroline yet?" Bonnie shook her head at my question, and worried creases appeared on her forehead as she typed out yet another text message to send to the girl. Caroline Forbes had never missed a day of school in her life, so by second period today, Bonnie and I had decided that she had to be either dying or already dead.

"Whoa." As Bonnie twisted around to put her phone back in her bag, her mouth fell open in shock. I followed her line of sight down to the nearby parking lot, where the purr of an engine accompanied a slick black convertible. It came to a smooth stop at the curb, and out jumped, who else, but Miss Caroline Forbes herself from the passenger seat.

"Oh my god… That must be the mystery guy she disappeared with last night." Up until that very moment, I had heard no mention of the so-called mystery guy, let alone that she'd gone home with him. As Caroline sashayed from the vehicle, I craned my neck to get a better look at the driver. Even from the short distance away I could see that he was muscular, with a thick head of black hair. He turned back towards the field, and seemed to be staring right at me. The man slowly, yet purposefully removed his sunglasses, never breaking my gaze, and my stomach did a nervous little flip.

"That's not a mystery guy, Bon. That's Damon Salvatore." I kept my eyes on him, partially from fear and partially from curiosity, as I watched Caroline start to head towards us.

"Salvatore!?" Bonnie jumped to her feet, pulling me up with her and grabbing me by the shoulders so that I faced her. "As in Stefan?"

Caroline made it to our sides, and approached us, a wild smirk on her face. She was one of my best friends, and had been since I was just a kid, but in that moment she made sure to catch my narrowed eyes and shoot back a prissy little glare of her own.

"I got the other brother. Hope you don't mind." The blond-haired vixen brushed past us after the comment had left her lips, and disappeared into the crowd of girls, immediately starting to call out commands. Bonnie was laughing, and shaking her head at the hilarity of the whole situation. What were the chances after all, that two best friends started dating two brothers, right? Bonnie gave one last stretch to the sky before she started to make her way over to formation, shooting me a Caroline will be Caroline look over her shoulder. Before I fell in place with the group myself, I waited for a moment, swiveled back to see the convertible again.

Damon acknowledged my attention towards him with a wink, and this sultry little smirk that left my cheeks burning bright red against my will. He propped his sunglasses back onto his face before revving the engine, and disappearing around the corner.

* * *

 

Thanks to the combination of not practicing for a few months, along with the surprise of Caroline dating Stefan's older brother, my concentration had been thrown for the rest of practice. After a few miserable attempts at my trying to keep up with the routines, Caroline had put me in the back of the group, and eventually moved me straight to the bench.

I slumped against the wooden seat, and craned my neck up concentrate on the clear sky. Old Elena wouldn't have been distracted so easily. She would've been able to get through practice no problem.

I stood up and started to walk across the expanse of grass, towards the others side of the field. I stole a glance over one shoulder to make sure none of my teammates were watching me escape. Even if Caroline did notice me, which probably wasn't likely as she was so wrapped up in practice, she definitely wouldn't have missed me,

On the other side of the field, football practice was just ending, and I spotted Stefan making his way back to the school locker rooms. With the memory of last night's kiss freshly resurfacing in my mind, I let myself become a flurry of warm, happy feelings, and jog up to him.

"Hey." My call was enough to get him to turn around, and he smiled. By the time we'd reached each other, the other football players were gone inside, and we were alone on the field. I reached up to touch a hand to the side of his face, and he made a move to take it away.

"I'm all sweaty."

"I don't care." I reached up on my tiptoes to meet his lips, wanting more of a deeper, hungrier kiss, but all I got was a little peck on the lips, despite the fact that I hung onto the back of his neck for a few moments after that. I felt a bit dejected, but instead of letting it get to me, I decided to flip the situation around.

"You haven't been able to meet my friends yet. You should come over for dinner tonight! We can all hang out."

He seemed to roll the idea around in his mind for a long moment, before finally giving in and agreeing.

"Great! I'll see you tonight! Around 7:00?" In a much better mood, I turned to skip back to cheer practice to tell Bonnie, but Stefan's gentle arm held me back.

"Elena, you'd look absolutely stunning with curly hair." It was a weird comment, completely out of the blue, even a little off-putting. Either way, I decided to take it as a compliment nonetheless. I waved to Stefan and blew him a kiss as I twirled back through the bleachers.

* * *

 

That night, after several attempts at cooking something edible, even with Aunt Jenna's help, Bonnie and I caved and ordered takeout. Without needing to cook a big meal before Stefan arrived, we had a bit of extra time, so I ended up dragging my friend upstairs and begging her to curl my hair.

After much convincing on my part, I had myself seated in front of the small vanity in my bedroom, with Bonnie working away at my hair from behind. As she shaped the thick ringlets around my face, I worked on my makeup. I filled in my eyebrows, put on black eyeliner, and a deep colored eye shadow that swooped across my lids like a bird's wing. I finished off the look with a dark lipstick as Bonnie continued to shape my hair.

"Why couldn't Caroline come again?" I bent close to the mirror, painting on some last minute mascara.

"Something about already having dinner plans with Damon. You know how Caroline gets with new boyfriends…" Bonnie's words trailed off as she let the last curl fall against my back, and leaned down to unplug the curling iron from the wall. "Wow."

"What? Is it too much?" I fussed with myself in front of the mirror, and before Bonnie could answer there was a polite, yet loud knock at the door. We both stood and made our way downstairs to answer it.

"You look great."

* * *

 

Dinner went way better than expected. Stefan had his eyes on me all night, and he complimented both my hair and makeup multiple times, making me ask myself why I didn't make myself look that good all the time. After we'd finished supper, I volunteered to take everyone's dirty plates to the kitchen, and stood to start collecting them. Suddenly, the doorbell rang.

My eyes connected with Jenna, silently asking if she was expecting anyone, but she only shrugged. I left the small pile of plates of the edge of the table to make my way over to the front door.

"Surprise!" Caroline was all sunshine and smiles, and pushed herself past me and inside the house. "We brought dessert." She stuffed a slightly disheveled pie into my arms on her way by, and skipped the rest of the way inside to greet Bonnie.

"I hope you don't mind, Elena." Damon stood on the doorstep, his eyes all innocent and his smile nothing but welcoming. I felt Stefan come up behind me, and maneuver his way around so that he stood positioned in some sort of protective stance against Damon.

"What are you doing here?" Stefan's voice was low and emotionless, and I saw the muscles in his back tense up and ripple beneath his shirt.

Damon, on the other hand, seemed to just brush off his brother's disdain towards him, and kept his eyes glued to me.

"I'm just waiting for Elena to invite me in." I shrugged, and tried to poke my head around Stefan's shield of a body.

"Oh yeah, you can—"

"No, no. He can't… he can't stay." Stefan cut me off and put up his hands on either side of the doorway to further block me and Damon from interacting. "We're just finishing up anyways."

"Damon, it's fine, just come in." I turned my back on the feuding brothers to make my way back to the kitchen, this time not forcing myself to hold back as I rolled my eyes. I wasn't going to get in the middle of whatever was going on between them. So, if Caroline was dating Damon, then he was welcome in my house as far as I was concerned.

"You have a beautiful home, Elena." Damon had somehow pushed past his sibling and come up beside me. His shadow was long enough and perfectly positioned to fall across me, and cover my view in a dark shade. Stefan had frozen in the open doorway, obviously angry.

"Thank you."

While Bonnie served the pie, I left Stefan to cool off by the door as I took the dinner plates into the kitchen. I set them on the counter, then moved to fill the sink with warm, soapy water.

"I got one more." Damon's husky voice caused me to turn around, and he tossed a mug at me. I panicked, and missed the throw, but he was faster and ducked down to grab it before it could even come close to the ground. I laughed as he returned it safely to my hands, and gave it a little pat.

"Thank you. Nice save." We were both smiling.

"I like you, Elena. You know how to laugh. And you make Stefan smile, which is something I haven't seen in a very long time."

"Are you talking about… Katherine?"

Damon rolled his shoulders back a little, and tilted his head to one side. He eyes narrowed a little, not in a threatening way, but curiously.

"Why did they break up?" I knew I was being nosey, but I couldn't help but ask.

"She died. In a fire. Tragic fire." My heart sank a little, and I felt a flash of pity towards Stefan.

"What was she like?" The questions kept rolling off my tongue, but my voice was quiet, not quite a whisper, with my words rising and falling in genuine curiosity.

"She was beautiful. A lot like you in that department." I felt myself go red instinctively, and hoped he hadn't noticed. "She was very complicated and selfish and at times not very kind, but she was sexy, and seductive."

I wanted to bite my tongue, but against better judgement, I tipped my chin up to look at him and spoke one last question.

"So which one of you dated her first?"

"Nicely deduced." A tight smile stretched across his mouth. "Ask Stefan. I'm sure his answer differs from mine." I turned back towards the dishes and brought them into the hot water to soak. I felt Damon approach me from behind, and I saw him lean against the counter top beside me.

"And Elena," I turned my attention back to him for a moment and his eyes glanced over my face. He stretched out a hand and took one of my ringlets to wrap around his finger. "you don't need to change yourself for anyone. Know that."

"I'm sorry about Katherine, Damon. You lost her too."


	3. Chapter 3

The next evening was the first football game of the season. Once again, Caroline had benched me, so instead of being forced to watch the rest of the team succeed in their routine, I decided to go get some air. I ran my hands up and down my bare arms and ground my teeth together in an attempt to keep them from chattering. It was getting chilly out.

After a few minutes of bearing the cold, I gave up and started to make my way to the parking lot, weaving around until I found my car. I was pretty sure I'd left a sweater for myself on the backseat. I unlocked the car and pulled open one of the doors, sticking my head inside. Nope, no jacket of any kind.

I closed the door with a frustrated sigh, but when I turned back around to leave Damon was almost an inch away from me. The surprise made me gasp loudly and stumble backwards into the end of my car, my heart skipping a beat and fluttering out of control. Why did he always have to sneak up behind me?

"You scared me. W-what are you doing here?" He was staring back at me with a hint of a smirk, clearly amused, but his eyes were flat, and almost angry.

"Waiting for Stefan." His reply was simple, curt. His eyes bore into me, and he didn't even so much as blink.

"The game hasn't started yet…" I shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other, and tried to find somewhere else to look besides his intense stare. "You can probably still go catch him in the locker room."

"Mmhm… I think I'll wait for him here." He took a step closer to me, and I took a step back, backing myself tight against the bumper of my vehicle.

"Caroline's just about to start her routine too."

"God, I need a break from that girl. I don't see us going anywhere in the bigger picture, you know?" He chuckled. "She talks more than I can listen."

"Well, um, I should get back to the game then…" My words were meant to dissmiss him, and I made a move to push past his towering form, but he took a firm hold of my shoulder to turn me back around.

"I'm sorry if I make you uncomfortable, Elena. That's not my intention."

"Yes, it is." I shook his hand off of me and crossed my arms around my chest. The situation was mighty awkward, and I had to admit that the man even scared me a little. "Otherwise you wouldn't put an alternate meaning behind everything you say."

"You're right. I do have other intentions," I raised an eyebrow in question to his words. "and so do you."

"Oh, really?" I crossed my arms tighter around myself, tossed my hair over one shoulder.

"Mmmhm…" Damon leaned much too close, and lightly spread both palms against my car, on either side of me. I was trapped against him. "I see how you look at me. You want me."

" _Excuse_  me?"

"You find yourself drawn to me." He leaned even closer, so that I could feel his warm breath against my cheek. "You think about me even when you don't want to think about me." Our hips were touching now, and my line of vision was filled up completely with his eyes. They stared into my own. "And right now, you want to kiss me."

He tilted his head, started to lean in to my lips. I was taken aback; completely shocked that he could be this sleazy. For a second I was completely frozen, but when I finally snapped out of it and gained control of my body again, I cracked my hand through the air, slapping him hard against the cheek.

"What the hell?" I shoved against his chest to get his body farther away from me, as he lifted up a hand to rub the spot where I'd hit him. "I don't know what game you're trying to play with Stefan here, but I don't want any part of it." At this point I was seething mad, and disgusted. "I don't know what happened in the past, Damon, but let's get one thing straight—I am not Katherine."

I strode away, my footsteps carrying me quickly back towards the cheering crowd of students. When I looked back to see if Damon was following me, I saw that he'd disappeared. Stefan was right about his brother being no good, that was for sure.

* * *

It was late, and I had brought Stefan up to my bedroom. He sat cross-legged on my bed, flipping through one of my textbooks, while I let my legs dangle over the side. I was saying something, probably idle chitchat, but I let my words trail off into silence when he set the book down and reached over to press a soft finger against my lips. My face softened when he pulled his finger away, and we both crawled closer to each other until he could properly weave a hand around the back of my neck.

Our lips were together almost immediately, and the kiss started like a feather-soft rub, just a gentle sigh. After that it got hungrier, deeper. Stefan opened my mouth with his own, admitted his tongue as he lowered me down onto the pillows. I flipped us over, and heard my textbook clatter to the ground as one of us accidentally kicked it off. His hands moved from the back of my neck, exploring my cheekbones, my shoulders, the swell of my chest.

I drew back for a moment, straddling him against the sheets. I inched the hem of my shirt up above my stomach before pulling it completely over my head, and discarding it on the floor below. The corners of Stefan's mouth curved up as we dipped together for another drawn out kiss.

I came back up for air and he pulled his own shirt over his head, the fabric covering his face for only a moment. When the rest of the shirt came off though, I wasn't running my hands over Stefan's chest, but Damon's, and he smirked wildly up at me.

I screamed and jumped back, falling off the bed and crashing into my wardrobe.

The action sent me snapping out of my dream, and sitting up in my bed with a wild gasp. My entire body was shaking, and despite the fact I wore little to nothing, I was slick with sweat. As my eyes opened, slowly and still groggy with the little sleep I'd gotten, I didn't see anything out of the ordinary. I brought a hand up to my face, rubbing furiously at my eyes before falling back down into the plush sheets with a drawn out sigh. Nightmares were the worst.

I rolled over, cuddling deeper into my pillow and all too ready to drift off again, when I felt a cool breeze against my face. My body jolted in panic, and I was suddenly wide awake and staring across the room at my window. It was wide open, and the curtains were billowing from the sharp autumn wind. I had shut it before I got in bed; I clearly remembered snapping down the lock, closing the curtains tight.

I sat up slowly, my stomach jumping to my throat and my pulse racing so fast I thought I was going to pass out. I hadn't felt this scared in my own room since I was a little girl who still believed in monsters. Letting my eyes adjust to the darkness, I started to survey my room, my hands curling tightly into my sheets, my palms damp with sweat. Everything seemed normal and in place, but then I froze when my stare stopped on a shadow in the back corner of my room. I felt my blood turn ice cold yet blistering hot at the same time. It was impossible to tell what it was exactly, but it definitely didn't belong there. The shadow didn't move, but the longer I stared, the more terrified I got. Colorful spots played at the edges of my vision when I refused to blink, petrified and much too scared to even consider looking away.

I stared at the dark shape for what seemed like an excruciatingly long time—hours even. It wasn't just a piece of furniture, or a weird reflection from my window. God, it had to be a person, or at least some sort of terrifying ghost. It was some sort of sick creature having a staring contest with me, waiting for me to break. And, I was going to break much too soon.

Keeping my eyes on the shadow, I started to move very, very slowly across the bed. I felt my left leg slip from the covers, my toes touch the floor, then my right followed. Bit by bit, I peeled the blankets away from my body, gradually stood up from my bed. I had two choices; I could continue slowly to the door, or I could run for it. I was sweating up a storm, and I couldn't even hear my own thoughts over the sound of my heart beating. I took a tiny step, barely moving half a foot, just to test the waters, and the shape moved. It strode from the shadows faster than I thought possible, and the pale shafts of moonlight escaping into my room revealed the face of Damon Salvatore.

I couldn't scream, I couldn't move, I couldn't breathe. All I could do was stare as he approached me, hoping with every ounce of my being that I was still dreaming. Damon stopped just in front of me, so that there was only an inch or so of space between the heat of our bodies.

"Where are you going, Elena?" He voice wasn't threatening, it was casual, curious, and that made it almost more terrifying. I had no idea how he'd gotten through my locked window, but after our run-in earlier that night, I didn't want to know what would happen next. When he was this close to me, I could smell the alcohol on his breath, and it was really strong. Yea, he had to be drunk, wasted, but he wasn't wavering or stumbling. There was something else different about him too; I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but whatever it was made every inch of him more sinister than before. His eyes caught in the moonlight, for just a fraction of a second, and they looked like two sharp chips of ice.

I took a step away, felt the back of my bare legs press against my nightstand.

"Stefan reaaallly pissed me off tonight, Elena."

I reached one hand back behind, cautiously feeling for something, anything I could use as a weapon. There was my glass of water, my phone, the remote to my stereo… I grabbed the remote tightly, keeping my eyes locked with his.

"I need to teach him a lesson, Elena."

I one swift motion, I hurtled the remote at him with every ounce of force I had. It wasn't much, but it just might've been enough to get me out the door. My makeshift weapon hit him smack in the forehead, and it was loud. If I hadn't knocked him out, I'd at least stunned him. Before I even got within a foot of the door though, he was in front of me, remote in hand. I watched in shocked horror as he made a fist, and crushed it with nothing more than raw force, letting the shards of plastic drop to the floor. Finally, I was able to find my voice, and I let out a piercing scream, sure to wake up the entire household, if not the neighborhood.

In one swift movement, my cry for help was cut short, and Damon wrapped one hand around my throat and the other around my mouth. His nails dug into my skin so hard they drew blood, and he squeezed my throat with such force that I thought he was going to rip my head off. Either way, I struggled and kicked and bit. Damon's efforts to conceal my noise had been too delayed though, and Jeremy suddenly burst through the door of our shared bathroom, looking panicked.

He locked in on what was happening, and froze in alarm. His eyes darted back and forth, but when he finally made a move to grab my slender reading lamp, he'd already hesitated too long. Damon threw me against the wall with impossible force, and when I landed, I felt something snap in my wrist. The pain was nothing compared to my concern for my little brother, and I struggled to get to my feet, just in time to see Damon slam his head into the wall. I heard a sick crunch, and Jeremy fell to my floor unconscious, leaving a head-shaped crater in the wall. All I felt was fear, raw panic, adrenaline. I couldn't even tell if I was yelling or not, and I tried running to my brother's side to no avail. Damon had me in his titanium grip again, and was shaking me so hard I thought I might crumble into pieces.

He was snarling threats at me, his voice now low and dangerous and predator-like. He had a handful of my hair in one fist, and was painfully yanking my head back, dragging me towards my brother's body. At that point I could barely even see Jeremy through my tears; thick droplets streaming from my eyes, making my wails sound all the more pathetic.

"Look at him, huh? If you don't shut up I'll rip his throat out." At that threat, his hand was out of my hair and back again at my mouth, clamping it shut with such force that my teeth ached and it felt like my jaw would be ground into a pile of dust.

There was a sudden, urgent knock at my door, and Damon wheeled us around so that we were facing it. I was expecting the look on his face to be manic, psychopathic, but with was calm and collected, with a hint of his arrogant smirk I'd unfortunately come to know too well.

"Elena, is everything okay?" Jenna rattled the doorknob, but it was locked. "I heard you yelling, are you alright?"

Damon's nails were digging hard into my face, and I felt five little rivers of blood mix in with the trails of tears dripping off my chin. His breath was hot and the smell of bourbon and cheap whisky was putrid.

"Be a good girl." His voice was husky against my ear, and he peeled his nails from my cheeks, took his powerful hand from my lips.

"Jenna run!" I don't think my voice had ever been so loud, so demanding, in my entire life. "Ru—!" Damon threw me across the room as if I were a ragdoll, and I hit the wall hard, knocking down a painting with me as I crashed back to the ground. I was winded, and struggled to breathe, struggled to move as I felt a numb pain surge through my body.

Jenna was throwing herself against my bedroom door, and it flew open. Her eyes went from Damon to Jeremy to me. She didn't have time to even properly assess the situation though before Damon was on her, snapping her head against the doorframe. He let go of her hair, still messy from sleep, and she crumpled to the ground.

I wheezed, trying to push myself up, but accidentally landing on my broken wrist. I let out a breathy cry, fell back down. My whole body was shaking, I felt like I couldn't even control it. Damon approached me slowly, sauntering one step at a time, like a sadistic beast circling its prey. He stopped in front of where I struggled on the floor, and I found myself face to face with his shoes. He reached down and plucked me up as if I weighed nothing, starting carrying me across the room, to my door that now sat dangling on its hinges. I started to scream again, long, terrible, blood-curdling screams, begging anyone for help.

Damon turned to my nearest dresser, ripped the top drawer open so ferociously that the handle when flying across the room. He grabbed a pair of socks from the top of the pile, and stuffed them down my throat far enough so that the cotton made me gag. I immediately reached my hands up to yank it out, but he twisted both my hands into a vice grip, making me cry out and choke in pain. Though I struggled with every force I had, it did nothing. He had taken away the power of my hands, as well as my voice, and my ceaseless kicking and squirming had zero effect.

He carried me down the stairs and out the front door without a word. It was so late, that there wasn't a single light on in the neighbourhood. Not a running car in the street. No one could see what was happening, no one could help me.

Damon hauled me to his slick car at the end of my driveway, opened the passenger door and threw me in. Before I could even think to run, he was in the driver's seat beside me, and I wondered if time was just moving faster because of how panicked I was. He locked the car doors prior to me even trying to open them, and started to drive. I ripped the gag out of my mouth, gulping in full, deep breaths before I started up my screaming again. I jiggled the door handles even though I knew it was useless, pounded on the windows. I rounded on Damon and went for his face, trying to claw his eyes out, make him crash to stop the car.

He stopped the car alright, but not because we'd crashed. The vehicle came to a screeching halt that sent me catapulting forward with enough force to smash my head on the dashboard. He grabbed me by the neck and turned my towards him, before ripping off the necklace from Stefan at my throat. The piece of jewelry sizzled in his hand as he put down the window, and he snarled as he threw it away.

The back of my neck throbbed from where the clasp had broken, but my attention was less on the pain and more on Damon's actions. He held his hand out in front of him, briefly, and I watched as the deep burn mark healed instantly in front of my eyes. He instantaneously rounded on me after that, taking my face in his hands so roughly I swore he almost broke my neck. His eyes became two flat, black disks, and they penetrated any comfort I still held in my mind.

"You are going to shut the fuck up and sit still until we get to the boarding house, or I am going to rip you in half." He voice was absolutely shocking, but it wasn't the terror of his words that got me to quiet down. My mind was screaming at me to continue fighting, but I sat quietly against my will, as if something had taken control of my muscles, of my bones.

Even with Damon speeding, the drive to the boarding house felt like it took hours. My entire body was shaking violently, even though I wasn't cold. I could feel beads of sweat pool on my hairline, and a fresh stream of tears flooded from my eyes. I tried to let out a sob, but the sound caught up in my throat, and nothing came out. I finally lay back against the seat, squeezing my eyes shut and trying to stop my lungs from hyperventilating myself into a coma.

I felt the car stop, heard the driver door open and slam shut. Damon was at the passenger side in a second, and hoisted me into his tight hold once again. I didn't struggle this time. The boarding house was on the edge of the countryside, backing onto an enormous forest. If no one could hear me in the suburbs, there was definitely no one that would hear me out here. I was carried inside, past the front hall and into the living room. There was a roaring fire lit in the towering hearth, and I somehow calmly wondered if Damon was going to toss me into the flames and watch me turn to ashes. Instead he lowered me down on one of the couches, and crouched down so that our eyes were level.

"You do not leave this house. Do you understand?"

My head bobbed up and down in a nod, robotically.

"Good." He lunged for me and everything went dark.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title of this fic, Dog Teeth, is based on a song by Nicole Dollangagner. Here are the lyrics for reference:
> 
> You're cold on the inside,  
> there's a dog in your heart,  
> and it tells you to tear everything apart.
> 
> My body's covered in teeth marks.  
> Your bite's worse than your bark.  
> You ruin everything you touch and  
> destroy anyone you love.  
> You're all over me.
> 
> He'd sunk his teeth in to the flesh of many others,  
> infecting them with whatever was  
> already inside him.  
> He'd broken all their hymens,  
> cut them open and played inside them.  
> He'd hollowed out their bodies so  
> they'd feel just empty as him.
> 
> You draw blood just to taste it.  
> You hold bones just to break them.  
> You ruin everything you touch and  
> destroy anyone you love.  
> You're all over me.

I woke up gasping in bucketfuls of air, and drenched in a sticky, cold sweat. I was disorientated. Where was I? Why was I looking at a fire? Everything from the previous night came flooding back all too violently as I sat up and properly realized that I was still in the boarding house. My entire body felt bruised, and my broken wrist was screaming for medical attention.

I held my breath and made myself listen to the sounds around me for a second. I heard nothing, yet that was the same case in my bedroom the previous night and that didn't turn out well. At that thought, a rush of dread made my jump to my feet. Jenna and Jer, were they okay? Damon had just knocked them unconscious, right? But that cracking sound as their skulls hit the wall… Besides the fate of my family members, I had about a million other questions, but my body was in instinct mode. I had to get out of there and back home, no exceptions.

I made an immediate beeline for the front door, sprinting there. I threw it open, double checked over my shoulder for any sign of Damon, and took a leap to freedom.

My body hit the open doorway as if it were a solid brick wall. I took a step back, confused, before throwing myself at it and pounding against it with all my weight. Any sense of confidence or calm I was starting to get back had dissolved away as I slammed the chunk of wood shut again. My eyes darted around the room. The cathedral windows were too thick to break, I needed to find one to climb out of instead.

I crawled up the stairs in silent haste, continuously checking over my shoulder for any signs of danger. I made my way into the first room I saw, and thanked the heavens that it was empty of Damon, or anything else that might try to hurt me. I sprinted across the expanse of floorboards towards the two-paneled window, and tore it open. A crisp wind sifted through my hair and I took a deep breath of the fresh air. I placed the palms of my hands on the window sill and hoisted myself up, attempting to stick my head out so that I could survey the drop.

Once again, I couldn't. There was some sort of invisible barrier, some weird, impossible technology that was keeping me from leaving. I hopped down from the window sill, whipped my head wildly around the room and tried to think of another possible way to escape. Would it be worth it to check the other windows in the house, or would they be blocked off in the same way?

"Stefan!?" Screaming his name was a last resort, but, after all, it was his home. Maybe he was here, maybe he would help me.

I heard a distant creak, and then the telltale slam of the front door closing. My spirits soared for a second. Stefan had been outside, in the yard, and he'd heard me call him! He was going to get me out of here, and to the police, and together we could put Damon behind bars.

"Eleeeeeenaaaaaaa…" My hopes disappeared into the black hole in my chest faster than they had sprung up. That definitely wasn't Stefan. I could hear the footsteps, loud, slow, and deliberate, walking through the main floor. I scrambled on the spot, searching wildly for somewhere to hide. I tore across the room to a huge wardrobe, and my footsteps echoed loudly against the hardwood floor. I threw open the doors to the wardrobe, but it was too small to hide in, and filled with chunky clothing. That's when I heard the first clunk of Damon starting up the stairs.

_Thump. … Thump. … Thump._

He was going much too slowly. He could've come upstairs by then, and definitely cornered me, but he seemed to be treating the situation like some sort of game. I ran to a door on the other side of the bedroom, and it opened into a bathroom. There was nowhere to hide in there. The shower was made of frosted glass, and the rest of the room was covered with mirrors. Something on the counter caught my attention though, and I moved quickly towards it. Beside some soap and a toothbrush lay a shaving kit, and inside it a slick straight razor. I pulled the blade out and weighed it in my hand, before getting a better grip on it and holding on as if it were my lifeline. I backed myself into the farthest corner of the room, and held my weapon behind my back. I tried listening for Damon's footsteps again, but the racing pulse pumping in my ears blocked out any sound. I had no idea what he wanted, but I was expecting the worst. All I could do was wait for him to come to me and hope I could catch him off guard with the element of surprise.

"Elena, come out, come out…" He was in the bedroom just outside the door, and I heard his low, taunting laugh ring out through the room as he apparently noticed the open window I'd tried to escape out of, and closed it.

"You can't get out of here, you know. I compelled you to stay." His voice was right outside the bathroom door, and I could see his shadow pooling in underneath it. Suddenly, he sent the door creaking open with a gentle shove of his hand, letting streaks of light stretch into the dark bathroom. He sauntered towards me, his expression terrifyingly emotionless, his eyes shaded by the little lack of light. I waited for him in my corner, trembling and holding the blade so hard behind my back that I felt my knuckles turning ghost white.

Once he was close enough, I pounced, letting out a merciless cry for luck. I plunged the razor straight through his chest, and watched him stagger back in surprise with bugging eyes. Not waiting another moment, I made my break. I'd killed him, I had to have. He was bleeding out on the bathroom floor as I ran out of the room and back into the hall, and gory images of him choking on bubbles of blood formed and blossomed in my mind.

I'd just reached the stairs, when I heard him snarl my name from behind me. I turned to confront him in a sort of numb horror, and watched as he pulled the blade from his chest in one smooth swipe, before sending it sailing to the floor and exploding into several pieces. My surprise got the best of me, and when I whipped back around and tried to continue running, my legs tangled up. I fell firmly onto my chin, and felt my teeth bite hard enough on my lip to draw blood. I tumbled down the rest of the stairs like a broken doll, but by the time I hit the bottom I was already in a panic to scramble back up, despite the throbbing bruises that were already starting to appear from the fall. I made it maybe all but two meters before Damon was right behind me again, grabbing hold onto a thick fistful of my hair.

He reeled me in tight enough so that it felt as if my scalp might rip off into his hands. I let out a feral whimper, and pulled desperately at his hands to no avail, before he let out a booming yell of his own.

"Hear that, brother? Do you hear her little heart beating? Can you smell her fear?" Though his voice was wild, pure animal, the same collected, yet arrogant look graced his features when he wrenched my head around to look at him.

"Stefan's in the basement, you know. Pumped full of vervain and wooden bullets." He smirk turned into a full-blown grin. There was something wrong with his eyes. They were too flat and emotionless, broken. It was as if he'd completely snapped, and become a different person. "God, I hope he's awake to hear what's going to happen next."

All through this I was crying, gasping. I had no words in my throat, no coherent thoughts being strung together in my head. Damon bent down towards my face again, and his eyes became hypnotic disks, mesmerizing and capturing my attention.

"You don't try to run anymore, not now." It was hard enough to move already, as Damon had such a tight hold on me, but now it was impossible. The soles of my feet were all but glued to the floor. I couldn't move them properly unless he moved first, dragging me along, and I obeyed as if attached by an imaginary leash.

He hauled me back into the living room, back towards the fire. In a single violent shove, he bent me over the back of one of the couches, and I let out a low groan of discomfort. The back of the sofa stabbed me viciously in the stomach, winding me, and the screeching pain that followed made my legs give out from under me.

"Get up!" Damon barked the order, and I meekly obeyed, trying to scramble my feet back onto the floor. All I wore were my pajamas from the previous night, a pair of panties and a thin spaghetti strap tank, and I suddenly realized how utterly vulnerable I was. I felt Damon move closer to me, and the front of his jeans pressed against my legs.

His fingers of one hand hooked around the hem of my underwear, and started to slink them down over my hips, sickeningly slow, while the other hand unraveled itself from my hair and took a deadly seize on the back of my neck instead.

"Damon no … please no…" My arms reached around to the back of my neck trying to pull his hands away, trying to wiggle free. My plea only seemed to anger him more as he slapped my hands out of the way and tore my underwear off in a single clean rip, leaving a sharp sting on my skin in the place they had split. He slashed my shirt straight down my back as well, snatching the shredded scraps of material from my torso and hurling them out of sight. I was naked, more terrified than I had ever been in my life. My mind went to last spring, when my parents' car had driven off the bridge and into the river. We were all drowning, and it felt like my lungs were going to explode. Before I had lost consciousness in the water, I saw the bubbles stop coming from my mom's nose, and the grip my dad had on my hand was getting weaker and slipping. Even that memory, the worst memory I could think of, had absolutely nothing on what was happening to me then.

"Are you paying attention, brother?" I heard Damon unzip his jeans as he yelled, and listened with hitching, unsteady breaths as he pushed them below his thighs. They slid down the rest of his legs and landed with a thud in a pool at his feet.

"Stop, stop… please, please no… Damon don't." I was shaking when he lined himself up against me, already struggling to breathe as he moved his grip on the back of my neck around to the front, and gave my throat a tight squeeze. I could feel his hardness pressing into me through his boxers, and I wanted nothing more than to sink down into the couch I was being pressed upon. Submerge myself deeper and deeper into the cushions until I was in a dark, painless world of cotton and stuffing and other soft, warm things.

"You a virgin, Elena? Huh?" My entire body, every single muscle inside of me, tensed up. I squeezed my eyes so tight that I saw bright grey static on the inside of my eyelids. "ANSWER ME!"

"No…" My reply was tiny and scared, and came out in a rush of gasping breath.

"My brother ever fuck you, hmm?" His words were a purr in my ear, velvet breath tickling the small hairs on the back of my neck.

"No, no…" My voice was still small, and I could feel myself shaking under the weight of his body.

"No, but you wanted him to, didn't you?" His words sounded like liquid sugar, and I felt one of his hands slip between my legs in a rough rub. It felt anything but nice, and I stifled a cringe. "You wanted him to fuck you until you couldn't walk straight."

"Get off… please Damon stop…" His hand was so tight around my throat that I could hardly draw a breath, let alone get coherent words out. I felt light headed and disgusting and ashamed.

"Get off? You can't order me around, Elena. Things just don't work that way." As he spoke, I felt him pull his underwear off, let them fall to the floor. His erection pressed against my backside, and I dug my nails into the sofa. I was nauseous; I was going to throw up. Suddenly, Damon thrust himself, in his entirety, inside of me and the only thing that came out of my mouth was a strangled wail of pain. I squirmed ceaselessly underneath him, and threw my head back to cry. He bent my body more in half so that it was easier for him to smother my face into the cushions on the couch, and I howled into them as he started to thrust in and out of me.

"It hurts!" My muffled yelp got lost in the pillows, and I took a mouthful of their material in my teeth, biting down hard. He was going too fast, way too fast. It felt like he was fucking me with fresh sandpaper lined with pins. I felt liquid between my legs, but since my body wasn't even remotely turned on by this, it couldn't be natural lubricant, it had to be blood.

Damon's hands moved around my hips, squeezing them hard enough to make instant finger-shaped bruises, and rocking them so violently against his that it felt as if my bones could break any minute.

My screams turned into strangled, choking sobs. My stomach was churning, and my frame remained completely rigid towards the throbbing inside it. The waves of pain ebbing through my body were starting to make me feel an oddly stinging numbness. He was splitting me in half, ripping me apart clean down the middle. Every time he shoved himself into me, my stomach rammed harder against the wood on the top of the sofa. His hands gripped my sides so tightly that I couldn't even feel them anymore. Though my face was buried in the darkness of the pillows, I swore I was seeing spots exploding across my vision.

Then suddenly, he stopped as quickly as he'd started and, pulled out of me very abruptly. I was a whimpering, trembling mess, and the breaths that came off my tongue were loud, wheezing pants. My hands were balled up so tightly that my nails had punctured the skin, leaving little bleeding half-moons in the palms of my hands.

Damon shifted slightly, loosened his death grip on my hips, so that his hardness was pressed up against the side of my ass instead. His mouth was close to my ear again and as he spoke his lips trailed down the side of my neck until he'd reached a tender, shallow spot.

"Let Stefan hear you scream, Elena." Before I could protest once more, he slammed himself up to the hilt inside of my ass. The muscles below my skin burned and shrieked in protest and the sobs that spilled from my throat pitched into a wailing screech. This was a thousand times worse than before, there was no other way to put it. My legs had given out from under me, but the mere force of his thrusts and the iron grip of his hands kept me standing, half slumped over the couch.

Damon's mouth opened against my throat, but I barely registered what was going on there. I was delirious with pain, exhausted, the nerves in my body starting to completely lose sense of what was happening. A sharp, zinging rush of white-hot agony sprung from my throat as Damon bit down, and shot through the adjacent veins in my neck. My body convulsed, trying to process what was happening, trying to adjust itself to the severe abuse it definitely wasn't used to taking.

I started to get more lightheaded than before, impossibly dizzy even though I wasn't standing. Before I passed out, the feeling of Damon tearing apart my throat amplified to be the only thing I was aware of. That, and the roaring heat of the nearby fire warming my hair.


	5. Chapter 5

I awoke somewhere cold and dark. I was sprawled out on the floor, and my still-naked body was pressed against hard cement. I was terrified to move just a single muscle, because even in my stillness I felt like death. My entire body was a mess of burning tingles, still numb and trying to make sense of all the different amounts of pain around it. My breath was shaky and small, and it sounded like it was very quickly fading, the pressing darkness around me swallowing the air and wrapping its shadowed fingers around my throat.

After a few minutes, when my stinging eyes finally had enough time to adjust, I could make out some details of the tiny room. It was small, that was for sure, and made up of large, grey stones. There was a miniscule hole in the wall closest to me, much too little to even think of trying to crawl through, yet it at least let in a bit more light.

My breath hitched suddenly, and I was forced to cough, sending my body shaking as the involuntary noise burst from my throat. The unexpected movements twisted my frame into shock, as all the agony from the night before came soaring back at once. I couldn't decide what hurt more. The lower half of my body felt as if I had been fucked with a sharp knife coated in acid, and I knew that if I could see better I would be layered in dried blood and expanding, black bruises. My broken wrist felt dead, and I was pretty sure I'd lost all feeling in my right hand because of it. My stomach was empty, yet completely swollen, and there was a constant, heated throb sending nauseous bursts of pain through my midsection. My neck was one of the worst parts. I could feel the wound on it, still fresh and still slowly bleeding, a huge gouge in the side of my throat. It stung, as if someone had thrown venom into the rip, and when I tried to move my neck even a sliver, the pain sent me over the edge. A jagged scream tore from my throat then, and I clawed blindly in front of me. I knew I couldn't take this. I was going to die here.

"Elena!?" Stefan's voice was weak, and muffled, but it was enough of a sound to ground me. I wasn't sure if I was even in the right state of mind to form coherent words, so I let out nothing but a teeny moan in reply, my throat still stinging from the screech that tore through it only a second before.

"Elena, I'm right here. It's okay." The whole situation was far from okay, but from the miniscule hole at the base of the wall, I watched as his fingertips stretched through and strained in my direction, and I felt at least half a shred better than before. My small form was less than a foot away from being able to reach out and lace my own digits around Stefan's, but I honestly didn't know if I had any strength left to move the few inches and connect out grip.

After a few moments of tense silence, and the soft sound of Stefan's desperate hand finally relaxing against the concrete, I fully decided that I wouldn't be able to move. It's not that I couldn't, but it's that I was much too afraid to even try.

"Stefan, help me." My voice was so quiet that I wasn't even sure if he'd caught the words, but even the whisper sent shivers of agony through my limbs, making my words crack into a hiccupping sob, if only for a moment.

"I'm too weak. I can hardly stand…" His voice echoed back through the wall between us, and bounced around in my head. Then I remembered what Damon had told me the night before, about how he'd filled Stefan with wooden bullets and… and some sort of other thing I couldn't quite remember.

"He shot you." My sentence was a simple statement, and I was more talking to myself than anything, letting it sink in. Yes, Damon had shot his brother, and done much, much worse things to me. The first time I was in the boarding house the other day, when I felt that sensation of fear wash over me the second before Damon appeared, that was no coincidence. He was a monster. He was a sadistic, psychopathic monster.

"Damon flipped his switch." Stefan's tone had gone ice cold, and he sounded more than a little afraid. I watched from the ground and he withdrew his hand, and I heard as he grunted, trying to stand. There was some rustling, his feet scrambling on the cold, dusty concrete in an attempt to find their proper stance, before a loud crack as he evidently fell back down.

I didn't exactly understand what Stefan meant by his statement. Was it just an expression? Damon had gone off the edge, to the crazed point of no return? Or were there more to his words than that? I was still confused about many things that had happened in the past couple days, and my mind was a mess of trying to figure out what I had really seen or felt, and what had just been my imagination from the adrenaline and fear coursing through my veins. I decided I didn't want to think about it too hard. Maybe the less I knew the better. Maybe if Damon realized how random his attack on me was, he would let me go, or at the very least kill me out of mercy and stop the pain.

"He's back." Stefan's tone suddenly shifted to one of panic, and he spoke his next words so quickly that I almost wasn't able to properly understand them. "Elena, do not make him mad. Do whatever he says, do you understand?" I closed my eyes tight, felt my jaw stiffening and my bottom lip starting to tremble. Stefan couldn't save me. He was just as powerless as I was. I had gotten my hopes up yet again, just to find out I was completely and utterly on my own. Just a helpless, frail, damsel in distress with no one to come to my rescue.

Moments later, I heard Damon's footsteps from a distance, the same slow, smug walk. I could very clearly picture him with his shoulders rolled back, chin tilted just high enough to make him look like a cocky dick. I could imagine his thumbs tucked lazily in the front pockets of his black jeans, and that wild, crooked smirk slapped across his features. Then those eyes, the ones that looked so soft and blue and desirable only but a few days earlier, but now looked dark, flat, and completely blank.

The footsteps stopped in the hallway outside of me and Stefan's confinements, and I could see the shadow of Damon's figure fall against my body through the bars in the door. He let an emotionless laugh roll off his tongue, and I tried to strain my eyes as much as I could without moving my neck to try and get a glimpse of him.

"Looks like we have a pair of chatty Catheys down here, hmm?" I heard the sound of soft movement, Damon digging through his pockets, before the telltale tinkle of keys filled my ears. I listened as he unlocked the door to my cell, and closed my eyes again as the heavy chunk of metal groaned inwards and opened. "Did I give you permission to speak?"

As Damon stood over me, I heard Stefan trying to get up again in the room adjacent, but his grunts of effort proved once again to be useless as he fell back down with a loud thump.

"Damon, leave Elena out of this. She has nothing, nothing to do with this."

"She has everything to do with this, brother." Damon bent down and dragged me off the ground by my hair. The sudden rush of all my limbs moving at once, the unconscious instinct to jump and give my feet a steady hold on the ground—all that jolted me into an immediate shock, and the only sound that sliced through my lips was a sharp gasp. Damon tried to usher me forward with a rough push, but my feet gave out from under me, and my ankle twisted badly from the impact against the concrete floor. At that point I was hyperventilating, and the bursting black fireworks returned and fractured my vision into a blurry mess.

"Do whatever you want to me, just let her go." I was leaning heavily against Damon as Stefan spoke again, and he half carried me, half dragged me out of the cell. I had gone completely numb. It felt as if I was floating, and my skin and bones were made of nothing more than electric static. The only thing I could still feel was a sensation I had never even noticed before: how thirsty I was. My throat was so dry that I was no longer able to swallow, as there was no saliva left even in the vicinity of my mouth. When I really thought about it, it made sense, as I hadn't had a drop to drink in almost two full days, maybe more. But, I had been fine a moment before, hadn't I? The thirst had come too suddenly and was washing over me at full blast. I felt like I was going to pass out again, or violently throw up. "She's just a human, Damon. You'll kill her…"

"Yes brother, you're right. I'll kill her." Damon had walked up to the front of Stefan's cage, and held me close against him. My head rolled back in his arms, and I was able to finally get a clear look at his face. Maybe I was hallucinating, but I watched in a sort of dazed horror anyways, as the skin around his eyes turned a deep purple, littered with streaky red veins, and he opened his mouth to reveal two slick, pointed fangs protruding from his gums. Damon leaned in close to my throat, and ran his tongue across the tender bite mark that was still there from the day before, making me moan loudly in pain, and attempt to struggle. "I'll torture her so, so slowly, until you're the one who's begging me to kill her, begging me to feel some sort of sympathy so I can simply put her out of her misery."

Damon's mouth opened wide against my throat, and this time I was fully aware of what was happening. He bit down gradually, granting me the razor-sharp agony of feeling his teeth slowly break and dig into my skin. As he drank from my neck I couldn't even find the energy left to scream. Little whimpers and silent sobs shook my body, and I distantly heard Stefan yelling, brutally trying to muster up the energy to throw himself against the door to his enclosure.

"God, she tastes good. You're hungry aren't you, Stefan?" Damon unhinged himself from my throat to speak, and he ran his tongue greedily over his lips and teeth. I could hear Stefan from the other side of the cell door. The sounds he'd started to make weren't at all human, not even close. "Yea, you're fucking starving."

Damon put his lips to the wound again, and I shuddered. God, I was so scared. I knew I was delirious with pain, but I wasn't imagining what had just happened. My head was spinning, I couldn't put a clear thought together. He wasn't human, neither of them was human. They were monsters—literal, real, monsters. Before, I had felt practically powerless compared to Damon, but now I knew that I was completely and totally incapable of defending myself. He was unbelievably strong, he could heal himself, and he could move faster than I thought possible. I had no chance against him. The knot in my stomach clenched and unraveled, and I had to bite my tongue hard enough to draw blood just to stop myself from fainting or throwing up.

"Kneel." Damon spoke to me, his voice low and dangerous. I hesitated just enough so that he shoved me to the floor himself, and my bare kneecaps hit the solid ground with enough impact to bring tears to my eyes.

"Please stop." I knew where the situation was going. Damon undid the button at the waist of his jeans, brought down the zipper. He didn't even bother wearing underwear this time.

"Shut up." He was already hard, and I closed my eyes so I didn't have to look at him. I'd never done anything like that before, not with Matt, definitely not with Stefan, and I'd especially not been forced into it against my will. Stefan had stopped snarling from inside the cage, but I could hear him breathing hard, still trying to calm himself down.

When I didn't make any sort of indication that I was going to take Damon's length inside my mouth, I felt his fingers wrap around the back of my head, tangling themselves into a grip around my hair. His other hand went to my chin, and yanked it down hard enough to tear my lips apart. He took the opportunity to slam himself inside my mouth. He hit the back of my throat, and I gagged, my body trying to double over yet continued being held up by his hands.

As Damon continued to thrust himself inside my mouth, he let out a deep groan, and his pace quickened. I was breathing hard out of my nostrils, trying desperately to widen my throat enough so that I wouldn't choke to death. With every push inside of me, I let out a muffled squeal, and as he quickened his pace I brought my hands up to push against the front of his thighs. I wanted to bite him. I wanted to bring my teeth together with so much force that I would rip his member clean in half. But he was looking at me, glaring at me. His stare said something along the lines of I dare you. I fucking dare you. It beyond terrified me, so instead of biting down, I opened my jaw wider and took it.

I faintly heard Stefan yelling something in the background, but I was too panicked to fully let it register. My nails had dug into Damon's legs hard enough to leave scars, but he hadn't backed away or even slowed down. In fact, he'd started to slam into me even faster, and my stomach churned. I couldn't do it much longer, I couldn't take it…

And suddenly, as his seed exploded down the back of my throat, I gave up, frantically starting to claw at his legs, stomach, anything. I was desperate to get him away from me. He did pull out right after that, and I felt a slight, fleeting moment of relief, but he didn't let go of my hair. I was choking, holding in all my built up nausea, but his grip on the back of my head only got tighter. He jerked his grip in my hair sharply, forcing me to stare him in the face with my watering eyes.

"Swallow it." The tone of his voice was absolutely petrifying. It was pure animal, an order that shouldn't, couldn't be disobeyed. And I tried to obey, I really did, but as soon as the thick liquid slid down my throat, I knew an alarm had just gone off in my body. I couldn't hold it in any longer. I tried my best to jerk away from his grip, but it didn't work, and the semen came rattling back up my throat, and spurting off my tongue.

Damon let my head drop, and I was gasping for air, but my stomach kept convulsing, and clear, acidy bile sputtered out of my mouth, spotting the floor in front of me. Because of the angle my face was in, it got caught up in my nostrils, stinging my sinuses and preventing me from really breathing. My crying only made the whole situation worse, and my body kept trying to bend over and throw up properly. By then, my insides were beyond empty though, without so much as more bile left to shoot up my throat, so I was left to dry heave above Damon's shoes.

Once I'd settled down from my fit, my head hanging low, I was trying to suck in huge, gasping breaths. My entire frame was shaking horribly, and a small mix of bile and snot ran like a stream from my nostrils. I was too rattled to even feel ashamed or disgusted, concentrating more on getting my breathing back to normal and trying to swallow away the acidic taste that had sunk into my tongue.

"Elena, look at me." I raised my head slowly, staring at Damon's leather shoes, and then traveling up his pants, his tight fitting shirt, then finally to his face, towering above me. The usual smug smile had disappeared from his features, and a startling look of anger stood poised to kill in its place.

I didn't even see his arm move from his side, but when he backhanded my face, my jaw made a loud and distinct snap that echoed against the walls around us, and sent a splatter of blood across the dirty concrete. I didn't scream, I didn't cry, I didn't even close my eyes. I just stared up at him, never breaking contact with his poisonous glare. And then he let go of the grip he had on my hair and I fell forward, knowing I wouldn't be able to catch myself, and collapsed face-first into a pile of my own vomit.


	6. Chapter 6

When I hit the floor I didn't lose consciousness. I wished I'd fainted or slammed my head hard enough on the concrete so that I'd passed out, but I didn't have any such luck. My surroundings spun a little bit, and Damon let me lay there to catch my breath for a few seconds, but before I knew it he was hauling me back to my feet. My ears were ringing so loudly that Stefan's yells in the background sounded as if he were screaming underwater. My eyes kept going in and out of focus to the environment around me, and I faintly registered the mixture of blood and bile splattered on the floor and nearby wall. It all seemed very far away though, as if I were in a dream. I couldn't even really feel Damon holding me up, let alone my feet touching the ground—it was more as if I were floating, drifting in the air.

My jaw hung slackly at the base of my skull, broken… shattered. I knew it hurt, or at least that it should hurt, but I didn't really feel anything. The signal wasn't making its way into my brain, it wasn't registering. I couldn't tell if I was breathing or not anymore, but I felt a remote pressure in my chest. I was dropping deeper and deeper into a black pit, and the darkness of its edges started to close in around my eyes. Damon was bringing me back upstairs, but that was the limit to my knowledge.

I think he was talking, I think he was making me walk up the basements stairs on my own, but I wasn't listening, couldn't obey his orders. My body was going into shock. It had been pushed much too far over the edge, and I was losing my grip.

When my eyes came back into focus we were already at the top of the stairs. I don't know how it had happened. Had I passed out for a second and he'd carried me? Did I walk up on my own and simply didn't remember? Damon pushed me down on the couch, and the softness underneath me felt nice. I wanted to close my eyes, and sleep forever, because little black speckles were dancing at their sides again and I knew it would feel good to just to give in.

Narrowed blue eyes filled up my line of sight, and suddenly he was shaking me. It started out softly, so that I hardly noticed, but the action grew violent and desperate, and tied in with him slapping either of my cheeks. Though I wanted to cower away from the attention and be left to slip away, I felt my body being forcibly torn away from my shell.

I resurfaced with a gasp, and my ears popped painfully at the resonance of sound around me. The pain came back less than a second after that, and almost drove me straight back over the edge.

There were no words, no actions, absolutely no way to express what I was experiencing in that moment. I felt everything at once, yet at the same time nothing at all. It was unbelievable to think that it was really methat was experiencing all that agony and letting it reverberate through myself over and over. It didn't feel like it could be real, it didn't feel like it could be true, because it was entirely too much to cope with. And yet, despite all that, Damon didn't seem to care. He was actually smiling, happy that he'd managed to rouse me from the stunned state I'd been frozen in minutes before.

"If you're a good girl, I'll heal you." His voice sounded warped and distant, as if it were echoing from a mile away instead of whispering directly into my ear. "I'll take away all the bad feelings."

His fingers trailed lightly down my neck, traced the outline of my collarbones. Both his hands cupped my breasts as they slid by, and swirled lightly around my bellybutton. He moved them down over my hips, and traced the silhouette of my body back up to the spot where my arms met my shoulders. Leaning back in close to my face, he left light kisses over my forehead and down the side of my left ear.

"If you don't scream, Elena, if you don't make a single, little sound, I'll make everything all better." He turned his back on me then, walked towards the crackling flames in the fireplace. I heard the scrape of metal, and watched as he removed a fire poker from its position on the hearth. He sauntered back towards me, and tested the weight of the weapon in his hand, taking a jagged test swing with it through the air. I should've been scared, terrified, but I wasn't. My emotions were blank, even though I knew what he was going to do, because I didn't understand how my pain could get any worse than it already was. No matter what he did to me, there was absolutely no way I could sink any lower… was there?

I heard a razor sharp whoosh snap through the air, before the metal rod came in contact with my shins. I felt them shatter instantly, and any sort of scream or sound that my body could possibly conjure up tangled itself in my throat and came out as a breath of silence. My back arched up against the couch, and my eyes rolled wildly in my skull. No… no…

He brought down the poker on me again, this time on my feet. Then again over my stomach. The pauses between the beatings became shorter and then shorter still, until I couldn't move, couldn't see, couldn't even breathe, and I felt a heavy flow of blood draining from my mouth, half-choking on it.

I saw the dark shadows closing in on me again, sickeningly fast, and this time I knew they weren't going to take me into a deep sleep. No, it was more than that. If I let them take me, I was never going to wake up. Without a second thought, I willingly let them engulf me, and it was all over.

* * *

I thought death would be a quick, clean, gentle relief, but it was less so. I didn't exactly feel any pain, but my entire form still ached. I was groggy to the point where my eyes stung even through their closed lids, and a tender hurt throbbed against my temples. I was starving, more hungry than I'd ever felt, and even that couldn't compare to my thirst. My throat was so dry that I thought it might turn to sand, and my mouth lacked even a drop of saliva. I was exhausted, and it felt as if my body had been pulled and stretched to a point that left every single one of my muscles screaming for mercy. And on top of all that, I really had to pee. I curled my fingers into the surface beneath them, and that's when the confusion started.

I was still lying on the same couch I'd died on, or at least that's what it felt like. That's around the moment when I became aware of my body as well. Without even opening my eyes, I could tell I was still naked. And I felt positively disgusting. Blood, a mixture of dry flakes and sticky-fresh droplets covered most of my skin. I still smelt the vomit that had ran down my chin, and my mouth tasted like absolute hell.

I opened my eyes. Damon was standing over me, staring right at me, looking unimpressed. I instantly sat up, almost falling off the sofa as I struggled to scuttle away from him. I grabbed a pillow, holding it against my chest to shield what little I could, not that it mattered at that point. I didn't understand why my movements no longer caused me any pain, let alone how my body even let me move after all the abuse it had taken. Hadn't he just broken my legs into tiny pieces after all? Hadn't I felt that fire poker rupture my stomach and splatter my insides across the room?

"How am I alive?" The whisper flittered from my throat almost effortlessly, and that surprised me. My jaw could move on its own accord, and I lifted up my right hand with its previously broken wrist to run my fingers across it. It was back in place, attached rightfully to the rest of my skull.

"You should be so fucking grateful, Elena." Damon leaned into me, but then his nose scrunched up and he leered back away. I felt my body grow hot in embarrassment as his eyes traveled slowly from my face to the tip of my toes, then back up again, scanning my every inch. "Look at you." He motioned broadly at my body, and his eyebrows drew close together in a glare. "You sicken me."

With a frustrated sigh, Damon ambled the couple of steps back towards my spot on the couch. He reached out to me slowly, apparently thinking that I wouldn't resist him anymore. Instead, I slid under his arm, and his fingertips just barely brushed the ends of my hair. I didn't know exactly what I was thinking, because even though I was quick, he was much, much faster. He was in front of me before I'd barely taken two strides, and I crashed roughly into his chest. I tried to pull back, but he held me there, crushing me in his grip.

"Come on, Elena. I rewarded you for being obedient, so don't you start this shit up again." I gave a great shove against him, even though I knew it would be useless. At that, he jerked me away from his body, holding me out at arms length before slapping me across the face. I stung, bad, and I could already feel a heated welt lifting from my skin, but at the same time I knew he'd been gentle. After last time he'd hit me, and almost completely ripped away the lower half of my face, that had practically felt like a feather-soft kiss.

"No more struggling." Though he meant his words, and his tone was highly demanding, the order didn't force me like some of his other words did. I wasn't sure how he had managed to make me obey him before by simply looking into my eyes, but whatever it was scared me. At any given time, that meant he could tell me to do absolutely anything, and I would be forced to do it. Some sort of sick hypnotism trick.

I let him wrap a strong hand around my wrist and lead me across the room, then upstairs. I kept silent, but it was hard to maintain any sort of steady breathing. I could feel my heart pumping wildly in my chest, and my pulse was loud in my ears. What if… what if I'd been unconscious for months somehow, and that's how my body seemed to heal so fast. Of course that thought made no sense, as there were no scars, and still bits of fresh blood, but I tried to take some solace from it nonetheless.

Damon pulled me past the room I had initially tried to hide in, and down to the end of the hall. We walked into a large bedroom, with a bed so big that my eyes widened in bewilderment. At first, I thought he was dragging me towards the enormous structure, and I was just about to struggle, when he led me into the bathroom instead.

It was equally as large as the bedroom, with a free-standing tub, and a great, glass shower.

"Get in." Damon motioned loosely towards the shower, pulling his shirt off in a single, graceful movement. Instead of obeying, I tried to swallow down my fears and decided to press my luck.

"I need to go to the bathroom."

"Fine." He crossed his arms over his bare chest, and leaned loftily against the closest bathroom wall. I stood still, making no move to start over to the toilet. I stared up at him, blinked expectantly. Wasn't he at least going to give me some privacy?

"I'm not leaving, Elena." He tipped his chin in the direction of the toilet, and a humiliating laugh rolled off his tongue. "I don't trust you on your own."

I tensed up, embarrassed. Of course I didn't want him in the room while I was using the toilet, but I had to pee so bad that I didn't really have a choice. I slowly stepped across the tiled floor, feeling his eyes glued to me, and sat down. I hung my head low and let my hair fall forward to hide my face as I urinated, the feeling of Damon smugly watching me being overwhelmingly uncomfortable.

I heard him cross the room, and when I'd barely just finished he yanked me back to my feet, flushing it behind us and he ushered me to the shower. I turned away from him as he undid the button on his pants, and stepped out of them.

He came up behind me and held me against him as he turned the shower on. I initially squirmed as the water soaked the front of my body, since he'd turned it to a searing temperature. The hot water burned my skin, and I had the urge to jump out from under its stream, but at the same time it started to feel oddly nice, and held a welcoming comfort for me. My entire body was turning bright pink from the heat after only a couple seconds, and every inch of me felt raw and new. I tilted my head back against the crook of Damon's neck and opened my mouth, admitting the scorching water to trickle down my throat. I knew my tongue would be swelled from it later, but I was so thirsty that I couldn't help myself, not to mention that I felt the insane need to sterilize every crevice in my mouth.

Damon loosened his hold on me, keeping a single hand wrapped lazily around one of my hips as he stretched out to retrieve a bottle of body wash on the self behind us. When he moved, I stumbled slightly at the loss of support, but caught myself on his arm. He reeled me back in and cornered me against one of the tile walls, placing one hand beside my head while the other popped the lid to the body soap and tipped it upside down.

My muscles tensed as the cool gel dripped onto my skin, and an uncomfortable pull in my stomach made me urgently avoid his gaze. The body wash rolled sluggishly down the hills of my chest, and the sound of Damon letting the bottle drop to the tile ground made me wince. He turned me back around and pressed me against him so that I could feel his hard chest once more against my spine. His hands ran down the length of my breasts and down over my stomach, spreading the soap in circles. Damon stroked the sides of my body, tracing my curves up and back down, arching his hands down across my ass and the long length of my thighs.

He was being so gentle, the whole thing felt like some sort of erotic massage. I was too scared to try and struggle away, and too humiliated to do or say anything else, so I didn't have much choice but to stare holes in the ground, and watch the last of my blood wash down the drain. I could see how my chest had flushed a deep red, and I felt heat radiating off my cheeks, neither sensation being from the blistering water.

As Damon continued to move his hands around my body, I felt myself unwillingly leaning against him. I was already so tired, and his playtime with me, though more than humiliating, was only making me sleepier than I already was. He had stooped down a little bit, settled his head gently into the side of my neck. The warmth of his body made a shiver pass through my own, and a soft, shuddering sigh quivered off my lips as he started planting little kisses across my ears.

"You're loving this…" Though his breath smelled sweet, inviting even, his husky whisper jerked me from my trance. No, no, I hated it, I hated him. Catching him thoroughly off guard, I wrenched myself away from his arms, stumbling across the floor and into the back wall. I dug my fingers into the slick tile behind me, my chest heaving as I evened out my shaky breath.

Damon was on me in a second. His hands slammed flat against the wall on either side of my head, and I tried to make myself shrink away.

"Tell me how much you enjoy it, Elena." His palms curled into fists, and they slid down the wall until they opened back up to grip onto my arms. My heart was racing again, and I flinched violently at the pain I could still almost remember.  _Don't make him mad._  Stefan's words snapped at me and ricocheted around my mind, but I tilted my chin up all the same, so I could catch his eyes.

"Why are you doing this to me?" My voice cracked halfway through the phrase, and ended almost unintelligibly as a small sob choked its way from my throat. Damon moved to cup my face, not a gentle gesture, but one that sent a shock of pain rolling down my neck when he tugged my head closer to his.

"C'mon, Elena. Tell me how much you fucking love it." His naked body was grinding into my own, and his nails dug into my cheeks. He ploughed his knees between mine, and violently jerked my legs apart using his own. I couldn't stop myself from fully started to cry again, and I struggled against him, squealing as he suddenly forced himself inside me.

"Don't, don't… please…" I hiccuped between my syllables, but Damon only became angry, slamming me back against the tiles so hard that I lost my breath.

"Say it." He hissed the words like venom into my ears, and his speed started to increase into something much more painful. My face fell forward into his shoulder as he let go of it, to prevent my head from behind knocked into the walls with every one of his powerful thrusts.

"I... love… it." I mumbled the words thickly into his skin, hoping maybe once I'd said them he would stop. Damon slammed into me harder, and harder still, and I reared my head to let out a wail of pain.

"Scream it!" His hips were crashing hard into mine, and I knew at any moment they might break. With every push inside of me, he seemed to knock me against the wall with more and more force. I felt like a ragdoll, flopping around without any control of my limbs. Overwhelmed, defenseless.

"I love it! I love it!" I howled at the top of my lungs, the words ripping themselves like knives from my vocal chords, leaving my throat sore and raw. He immediately slowed his pace into something more tolerable, stopped breaking my body against the shower wall behind us. His intense, piercing blue eyes were locked on mine, and his expression crept smugly into one of complete arrogance.

I was gasping for breath, my eyes wide and round as saucers.

"Yes, yes you do." He came in close again to speak, and he let his fingers start roaming down and around my body once more. I didn't stop him this time, and after a moment his thrusts reduced into more nauseatingly slow shoves. While one of his hands stayed around my stomach, curling up towards my breasts then dipping back around to my back, the other curved lower, between my legs, and started to rub me. As he toyed with me, I felt my knees grow weak, and I leaned heavily against him, still breathing hard.

The sting from his temporary roughness inside of me was starting to subside, and transform into a deeper, more satisfying feeling. Why did this feel so good? In that moment, I hated myself—I was absolutely disgusting. If I were sick enough to get pleasure from someone who'd hurt not only me, but the people I loved, then I guess I truly deserved the terrible things he'd done to me.

A sound came from my lips, and though I tried to tell myself that it was some sort of cry for help or an aching whimper, I knew it was really a moan. Damon must've known as well, because he continued exactly what he was doing, and started to suck and nibble lightly on my neck.

"Good girl…" He breathed the words against my wet hair, and I dug my nails deep into his back. I couldn't stop the little sounds that came from my mouth; a pretty array of gasps and sighs. I had tears in my eyes, and a strong part of me was screeching alarms in my ears, telling me to struggle away. At the same time, we'd already gone too far and I just wanted release.

I mashed down the self hatred and the warnings and any other bad thoughts down the back of my mouth, making them build a knot in my throat. I focused on nothing but the ripples of pleasure wavering through my core, and felt myself starting to respond to his body, moving in time with it. Once I gave in, it all happened so fast, and within moments Damon's speed had picked up again, expect this time it felt good. A broken groan fell from my lips as I came undone in his arms, and he exploded inside of me a second later.

He threw me back against the tiles behind us, and stood bent over me, breathing almost as heavily as I was. We leaned pressed against each other for a long moment, soaked with the still-running water, and our own sweat.


	7. Chapter 7

The after effects of my orgasm, little surges of prickly energy, kept my body a shaking mess under Damon's stooping form. Without the cloudiness of full-blown pleasure though, my swirling thoughts had started to blow up in my mind, and take over. I felt empty, used. A couple minutes of sexual bliss were nothing compared to the rush of guilt that came afterwards. I wanted to tell myself that the sex had just been my body instinctively responding, but I wouldn't lie to myself. I had honestly enjoyed it, and being able to admit that made me hate myself more than I thought I ever could.

I felt absolutely revolting, on the inside and out. Despite standing under a stream of burning water, I had the need to make it hotter. I wanted to burn my skin right off my bones, tear apart my insides and watch them circle down the drain. Every place where he'd touched me felt dirty, repulsive. Even letting myself think about him putting his hands on me again made me feel nauseous.

God, I was worthless. I was a useless, disgusting slut. Damon had broken into my home, kidnapped me, hurt the only family I had left, and tortured his own brother. Yet only a moment ago I was moaning loudly against his skin, and thrusting myself against him in order to get him deeper inside of me. Damon had said that I sickened him, and he was along the right lines. I sickened myself. I deserved all the torture in the world.

I felt fire-hot tears stinging my eyes, but I refused to let them fall. I had already proved to myself that I was pathetic—I didn't need more evidence to further my point. I scrunched up my face, squeezed my eyelids shut so tight that I saw little stars burst across their blackness.

I heard Damon shifting around me, and opened my eyes in time to see him step out of the shower. He grabbed a towel, draped it over himself as he started to dry off. I watched him with narrowed eyes, hating him for his perfect body, hating him for his arrogant stride, hating him for the smirk that I wanted to rip clean off his face. He let the towel drop in a pool at his feet, and picked his way over it before heading back towards the bedroom.

"Come." It was a simple, flat command. No room for discussion, I was supposed to obey. My small hands curled into fists at my side, my nails once more threatening to break the skin and make little scars across my palms. The water from the shower head was losing heat, and poured against my head in a way that pushed my hair over my face. If he were to have peeked back at me, I knew I must've looked menacing. I was more pissed off at myself than anyone though.

Let Damon do absolutely whatever he wanted to me, I refused to submit or give into him ever again. I would rather die than let him have the satisfaction of me enjoying following his commands. Though I was sure I meant those thoughts, as they made me feel like I held a least some sort of power, I knew deep down that they weren't exactly valid. In truth, I didn't actually want to die, and I doubt many people would. I didn't want to be tortured again, only to have him magically heal me and start the whole process over again. I didn't want to have him inside of me or kissing my skin or running his hands down the length of my body. I didn't want any of that, but in all honestly did I actually have much of a choice?

Before Damon could call me again, my feet carried the rest of me out of the shower, after I'd turned it off. I felt ill, dizzy almost, but I couldn't stop myself. I hadn't been hypnotized this time, but I was scared. Even though I had just told myself that I wasn't going to listen to him anymore, my fear got the best of me. As I padded back into his enormous room, leaving wet footprints and droplets of water from my hair behind me, I felt the tears I'd been holding in run from my eyes. I managed to save myself a shred of dignity by biting back the raking sobs that threatened to jump from my throat, but even so I was weak. Nothing but a weak and pathetic, obedient little girl. I hated myself.

Damon was already sprawled out on his over-the-top bed, not even bothering to cover himself with a sheet. He had his arms folded contently behind his head, leaning back into the mess of pillows. His eyes were trained on me, and I saw them darken at the sight of me crying.

"Elena." He growled my name, and didn't even have to give me an order to follow before I walked around to the side of the bed he lay on, standing in front of him. There was a pause, as if he were expecting me to do something. An annoyed hiss escaped Damon's teeth, and he shifted from his position to reach for me. My entire body stiffened as he plucked me up by my waist, and I bit hard into my tongue when he pulled me on top of him.

Though I was straddling him, I didn't feel any more in control than when he had me pinned to the bathroom wall a few minutes before. He spread my thighs so I sat comfortably on his stomach, and his hands had a tight grip on my hips. The feeling of his fingers digging into my skin made me wish I could wilt away into nothingness. His touch was like hot garbage against my body, and I wanted it as far away from me as possible. Damon fell back down in the bed, letting his hands slid off of my hips and down my legs, running the pads of his thumbs in soft circles against my skin. He was smirking up at me, obviously enjoying the view.

I leaned forward enough so that I could rest the palms of my hands flat against his chest. I was absolutely exhausted, and could hardly hold myself up straight, but Damon must've interpreted the action differently. In a sudden, sharp movement, he flipped us, and I found myself pinned to the mattress with him hovering over me. The whites of his eyes had turned a sickening blood red, and purplish veins rippled around his face. I'd seen the transformation a couple times by then, and it still left me equally confused and terrified.

"You're shaking…" Damon's tone was nothing but amused, and as he leaned down to kiss my neck, I felt his fangs gently, threateningly, scrape over the sensitive skin on my throat. He moved his mouth up the base of my jaw, across my cheek, then against my lips. Of course I didn't kiss him back. I kept my own mouth shut, and frozen in a tight line. I didn't close my eyes even thought he did, but instead focused them on the far wall.

Damon's lips ceased their movements for a moment, and a grunt of anger rose from the depths of his throat. His fingers, previously wrapped around my small wrists and holding them tightly at my sides, stiffened. He abruptly let go, and slashed his nails up the length of my arm, digging them in deep enough to make more than just shallow scratches. I let out an audible cry, and he took the moment of my mouth being open to capture me in another kiss. With that, he forced his tongue through the barrier of my lips, and tried to get a reaction from my own tongue. When he realized I still wasn't really responding, he lashed out once more, this time racking his nails across my stomach, then my thighs. I already felt blood seeping out of the wounds from my arms, and Damon let the kiss shallow out for a moment, apparently distracted by the scent of the gore. I took that opportunity immediately, and bit down hard on his bottom lip. It was an idiotic move, but because of the fight that was playing out in my mind, it seemed almost like an instinct.

Drops of his own blood dripped into my mouth before he had the sense to pull away from my teeth, and when he finally did rip himself back up, I watched with big eyes as his small wound instantly healed.

The veins around his eyes grew darker, blushing into the color of a fresh bruise. His eyes scanned the sight of my bloody body. All traces of smirks and smiles were gone. The Damon that glared at me, pinning me to the bed, was a pure embodiment of anger and instinct. He curled his lip, like some sort of rabid animal, and I finally got a good look at the two inhuman fangs protruding from his gums. Long, and sharp… already glazed with blood. He became aggressive suddenly, snapping back down at my face and taking my mouth against his own. The kiss was angry and rough, and our teeth ground together painfully. He bit into my lip with his pointed teeth, and I let out a muffled gasp around his face. He started to drink from my mouth, but pulled away after only a moment, before the pain could get too terribly bad.

I let out a second wail of pain though, when he instantaneously proceeded to dip his head and rip his teeth deep into the meat of my shoulder, tearing open a large wound. He came back up to kiss me, moving my mouth unwillingly with his own actions. He dug his fingers into the newfound gouge on my shoulder, causing me to writhe and attempt to scream beneath him. His kisses were urgent, violent even, and I finally got the message. I kissed him back with all I had, as if I even possessed a choice.

He stopped the scratching and the biting, and moved his hands to instead harshly grasp the sides of my face, hungrily yanking me closer. My mind was working at a hundred miles per hour, screaming at me to stop and endure the torture instead of giving Damon the satisfaction of me kissing him back. I ignored my better judgement though, moved my suddenly free hands to tangle through my captor's thick, black locks. If I were to just let myself get lost in the moment, get lost in his lips, it might just be over sooner.

Damon's fingers moved up from my cheeks and ran into my own long hair, reeling bunches of it tight in a fist and pulling hard. As we detached our lips to get a quick breath, I yelped loudly. It wasn't a sound of pain, not exactly, but I reciprocated the action by tugging sharply on clusters of his own strands. Then we were glued together again, and Damon was moaning deeply into my mouth. He wrenched himself off my lips, panting against my cheek, moving himself down over my chin, and the dip of my neck, before settling at a spot against the side of my throat.

His teeth bit shallowly into my skin, but it didn't hurt, and when he started drinking, the feeling of my blood flowing from the wound and into his mouth almost felt good. The whole situation was fucked up. We were both sweating heavily, equally covered in scratches and smudges of our own blood. The coppery taste of it still clung to my lips, and my chest rose and fell so roughly, that it even moved Damon as he fed. I tipped my head back against the pillows, closing my eyes and, for some sickening reason, relished in the sensations of that moment. My whole body stung, but the feeling made my skin abuzz in excitement, not in pain. I felt alive, even though I was completely hollow inside.

"Fuck… yes, Katherine…" I barely caught Damon's words, as they were muffled against my throat and thick with desire. But I heard them anyways, and snapped out of the weirdly ecstatic state I had temporarily slipped into. My entire body tensed, and I opened my eyes, the actions playing themselves out against my will. Before I could go back to pretending, or at least brushing off what I'd heard, Damon froze.

He stopped drinking, and lifted his head. His eyes were so deep red that they were almost entirely black, and he stared up at me like a predator who was less than a second away from making a kill. He looked like some sort of demonic monster, and I found myself unable to breathe, only capable of staring at him with wide, terrified eyes. His features twitched as he registered who I really was, and a low growl rumbled through the room.

We were frozen in that moment for what seemed like forever. I was paralyzed with terror, not even daring to breathe, terrified to look away from his poison glare, and his anger was so dense, so prominent, that it filled up the room like a thick fog. Then, he sprung into action, veering away from me and lashing out.

He slapped me hard across the chest, and I let out a staggered wheeze—the only sound I could really muster up. It felt as if he'd hit me with a cane, or a whip, not his hand. Just as I saw the bruised welt start to rise from the sensitive skin of my breasts, he hit me again in the exact same spot. I let out a jagged shriek this time, and he responded by flipping me over and jabbing my face deep into the mattress, holding me there so that it was near impossible to breathe. His other hand continued to hit me, slapping my back, my legs, the curve of my ass. I was squirming like crazy underneath him, clawing at the tight grip that held my face against the covers. He loosened his hold on me, giving me a chance to catch my breath, but then he was biting me again. It was different that time though, his fangs ripping into a dangerously sensitive spot on the back of my neck. The pain paralyzed me, and I felt him tearing at my veins. He didn't stay there for long though, and within a couple of seconds his mouth had moved to my shoulder, then down the length of my arms, to my wrists, all the while shredding my skin with his teeth and rupturing my veins and arteries.

He bit my sides, my thighs, my ass, then he traveled back up to my neck, ripping out chunks of skin, drinking deeply. I couldn't really tell at that point if I was screaming, but I was rather sure that I'd gone into some kind of silent shock. The bed sheets were soaked a staggeringly bright shade of red, and I felt extremely light headed. Damon flipped me around once again, and was back to drinking from the bite marks on my lips. After that, I think I fainted, because I remember nothing more except for an uncomfortable sheet of darkness.


	8. Chapter 8

When I woke up, I didn't know how much time had passed, but my mouth was once again dry and sticky. I was lying on my back, staring at the ceiling, but I felt nauseous as my dizziness was making the damp stones twist in circles around my field of vision. Though my heart was beating fast, and my breath was coming out in quick little gasps, I felt sluggish and tired, struggling immensely against the temptation to let myself fall back asleep.

Slowly, I tried to make myself sit up, but my palms slid against the concrete ground, and the room around me spun. I blinked rapidly, temporarily realigning my vision. Scooting back, I reversed myself into the closest wall, knowing I'd need something to lean against if I truly wanted to get into a sitting position. I was in the cell again.

Though it was still pretty dark in there, my eyes adjusted quickly, and I held an arm out in front of me. No more bite marks, no more scratches, no more blood. I'd been healed again, and cleaned. But damn, I was still stark naked, which didn't exactly help with the cold temperature of the basement. I let my head fall back against the wall behind me, breathing out through my mouth since my nose was much too dry. A headache pumped against my temples, and the sudden throb of pain made me want to curl back up on the floor, but I resisted. I was alone, and even though I was dehydrated and hungry and weak, I was at least healed of any physical wounds, which meant that I had to make an action plan.

I wondered if Damon had left the door to my cell unlocked. I couldn't escape the house after all, unless he'd taken the invisible barrier away, so he didn't really have a good reason to keep me in here. I gripped hard onto the wall as I stood up, my legs trembling and knocking together with effort. If it was open, I could let Stefan out too, and maybe, just maybe, we could overpower Damon and escape together.

I took a step towards the door, and the sudden flare of hunger from my stomach made me drop immediately back down to my knees, my eyes bugging wildly. I don't think I'd ever gone more than 24 hours without eating, and how long had I been at the boarding house for? Three or four days? Maybe even more?

I crawled the rest of the course to the door, then clawed my way back up into a standing position. I tried the door once, twice, but it didn't budge, not even a little. In a last fit of desperation, I threw myself at it with every ounce of strength I could possibly conjure up. Nothing.

I lowered my body back down to the dusty flooring, and settled into an uncomfortable heap on the concrete. At least Damon wasn't in the cage with me—that was the only positive thing I could think of. Well, that, and the fact that I still had Stefan. I craned my neck to the barrier separating our two cells, suddenly remembering the hole in the wall that we could talk through. I stretched out flat on the ground, dragging myself the couple of feet towards it so that I could press my face up to the opening, peering inside.

Stefan was curled into a ball, almost close enough so that I could stick my hand through and touch him, but just out of reach. He looked like he was asleep, and I sure as hell hoped that he was because the alternative was too terrible to even think of. Stefan was the only person I that could possibly know I was at the boarding house, and he was my last hope.

"Stefan?" I whispered his name urgently, and repeated the word a few times when he didn't respond. I bit the inside of my cheek, and gazed around for some sort of solution, my eyes landing on a moderately sized stone next to me. I reached over, picked it up, and weighed it in the palm of my hand. Then, closing one eye to aim, I sent the rock skipping through the wall-gap, and bouncing off Stefan's leg. I held my breath, and my empty stomach clenched in anticipation. If the pebble didn't rouse him, I wasn't sure what else there was that I could do. I didn't want to start yelling at him and pounding the walls out of fear that Damon would hear and come downstairs again. And I could most definitely go without a repeat of him forcing his cock down my throat and nearly snapping my jaw straight off my head. Luckily for me, Stefan suddenly started to stir, letting out a pained sounding grunt.

"Stef? Stefan." He awoke fully, turning to face the direction of my voice. He let out another groggy moan before finally cracking open his eyes. It took him a moment to find my gaze through the hole in the wall, but when he did he crawled over, laying down on his stomach and pressing himself as close as he possibly could.

"Elena… I thought you were…" Our faces were so close that I could feel his warm breath against my cheek. I was scared to take my eyes off of him, even to blink, because if I let myself look away, Damon might drag me back upstairs before I could clear up my confusion and find a way out. "I smelt so much blood…"

"Stefan, you need to tell me what's going on… and what you are."

His green gaze disconnected, finding anywhere to look except for my own eyes, guilty. He brought a hand up, scrunching up his face and squeezing the bridge of his nose between his fingers.

"We're not human." He spoke each syllable with caution, as if he were trying to choose his words very carefully.

"Obviously." I knew it was unfair of me to be angry with him, and I should've held back any snippy remarks, but it was hard enough to bite my tongue against Damon, let alone someone I was more comfortable around.

"We're vampires." Alone, the two words were absolutely ridiculous. Something I'd usually laugh off and roll my eyes at if it were ever said to me. But at that moment, after everything that had happened, I truly believed him. Because, what else was there to believe?

"I'm sorry, Elena." I rested my chin in my arms as he spoke, looking back up at him. Stefan resembled a puppy with his big, soft eyes, and his pouting lip. "This is my fault."

"You told Damon to take me." It wasn't a question, it wasn't really an accusation either, it was just an emotionless statement. I let the words sink in and be accepted before I even spoke them. The night of the football game, when Damon had tried to kiss me, he was looking for Stefan. Then, only but a few hours later, Damon attacked my family, and ripped me away from my home. Stefan had to have played a part in it somehow.

"I wouldn't ever want you to suffer like this, Elena. You should know that. Damon—he heard a rumor, and traced it back to me. When he confronted me about it, and found out that it was true… well, he just snapped."

"What did you tell him, Stefan?"

"I-I didn't think that he would take you. Lock me up and torture me, sure. B-but… bringing you into this… that was never supposed to happen. I-I never knew he would flip the switch, Elena..." Stefan's words were slurring, blubbering, and I heard the sound of sobs choking up his throat. It made me feel worse that he was crying. I needed Stefan to be strong, not just for me, but for the both of us. I was feeble. I was submissive and scared and pathetic. Stefan stood as my last shred of optimism, of strength. Maybe he could get out of the cage, maybe there was some way for him to overpower his brother, and get us both out of the boarding house. But not if he was crying, not if he was weak.

"You've said that before—flip his switch—what does that even mean?" I tried to keep my voice level, tried to keep a steady train of thought. If Stefan couldn't be the strong one, I had to at least act like I was, even if it wasn't the truth.

"He's turned his emotions off, Elena. He can't feel anything, doesn't care about anything."

"Damon is hurting me, hurting you, to get back for something you said, right? Stefan, I have no idea what's going on, yet even I can figure that out." My voice was rising in anger and humiliation and a million other pent up negative feelings that were bursting to get out. I wanted nothing more than to get out of there. I just wanted to be with my family and friends, go to the grill with Matt and catch a bite to eat. Maybe we could patch our old relationship back up, because I was seriously starting to regret ever meeting Stefan. I didn't want to blame him for what was happening, but part of me did. Because, even if I liked him, my life would be a whole lot better at that moment if he'd never stepped into it in the first place.

"I'm gonna get you out, Elena. I'll—I'll talk to Damon, I'll convince him to—"

"Tell me why Damon lashed out. What could you have possibly said to him?"

Stefan stopped answering me, and when I pressed myself against the eroded stone, looking back through the opening, I saw his head fall into his arms, defeated. I felt no sympathy, not anymore. Though I was exhausted, a strong flare of anger shot through my body, and I just wished I could maneuver my arm well enough through the gap so that I could slap some sense into him. While Damon would take me upstairs and have his way with me, all Stefan would do was mope around in his cell. Yea, he was trapped, but he wasn't being abused. He could be digging a way out, or trying to break down the door, instead of just sitting there and doing nothing while Damon did whatever the hell he wanted with me. It wasn't fair. I never asked to be a part of the brothers' fight, and I even made myself clear to both of them that I didn't want to get in the middle of anything.

"Stefan! Look at m—"

"Keep quiet." He cut me off with his soft retort, and I veered away. Though Stefan had a point, that I should whisper or else Damon might hear, it made me feel insulted for him to point it out. "Give me your hand."

"Why?" Though my reply was a whisper, it was sharp.

"Do you trust me?"

I wondered if Stefan really wanted me to answer that? How could I trust him, or anyone, after everything?

"Elena, listen to me. There's nothing I can say to make this better, and deep down I know that it will be impossible to talk Damon into letting you go, as he's well aware that I still care for you. But, if you give me your arm, maybe I can get us out."

"How?"

"I… I need to be careful, but if I drink just a little bit of your blood, I'll regain my strength."

"And if I pass out?"

"Just trust me." Those three words didn't assure me. They were a leap of faith, and they frightened me, but they were all I had. At that point, I knew I didn't really have the strength to put my faith in Stefan, because I couldn't even trust myself anymore. I didn't have many other options though. I could rot away inside of my cell, waiting for Damon to either let me starve to death or come back downstairs to rip me into little pieces. Or I could blindly go with Stefan's plan, hoping that my blood would actually give him newfound strength and not just satisfy his thirst he had as a vampire.

I tried to swallow, but the lack of saliva in my mouth created an uncomfortably dry lump in my throat. I had to stop thinking about it, and just take action. I slid my hand across the concrete, watching it disappear into the opening in the wall. I was able to stick my arm in to just above my elbow before it wouldn't really fit anymore.

My fingers were clenched in a tight fist, and I jumped when I felt Stefan's soft touch. One by one, he gently spread my hand out flat, comforting me, and turned it over to expose the rivers of veins across my wrist.

"Just relax." I thought he was talking to me at first, and I tried to follow his words, but then I heard his breath start to hitch, and his gentle grip became increasingly tighter until his nails dug painfully into my skin. In a sudden last minute panic, I attempted to pull my arm back through, but I was unable. Stefan had me caught in a game of tug-a-war, and, as I felt his hot breath close to my skin, I knew he'd sooner rip my arm clean off than let go.

He sunk his fangs into my flesh, but it was less like a small bite and more like a vicious rip. He was tearing my skin off hungrily, literally burrowing his fangs into my arm. I tried my best to stay calm, and stuffed my other hand into my mouth to muffle out my screams. I thought he'd stop after only drinking a little bit, and then maybe he'd even heal me like Damon did, but that wasn't the case. When Damon drank from me, I was scared, but at least I could tell that he was in control of his actions. Stefan, on the other hand, had no limits. He was like a real wild animal, overcome by the instinct to feed. I was straining my hardest against the agonizing flames that tore down my arm, but he wouldn't give up.

I was almost happy that I couldn't see the gore on the other side of the wall, but I could feel myself quickly fading. My blood was draining out too fast, and if Stefan didn't stop soon, I was going to sink farther than just into unconsciousness.

I removed my other fist from my mouth, and used it as leverage to try and push away from the wall. Though I tried to keep my voice down, I couldn't help it. Stefan's name slipped from my lips in increasingly panicked intervals until I was screaming at him to stop. After only a few seconds, I lost feeling in my arm, and I couldn't move my fingers. I collapsed against the floor, breathing heavily and trying to keep my eyes open. I struggled to keep screaming for help, some part of me thinking that Damon taking me back upstairs would at least be better than dying, but I felt my voice quickly disappearing along with the world around me.

I was fading out of consciousness, but I heard yelling— furious words being spat out at someone. I heard the groan of metal, and a weight lifting from my injured arm. Then, suddenly, the world tilted and I was standing, supported by one strong arm around my waist, and the other around my throat in a choke hold.

I blinked like crazy, attempting desperately to keep my eyes open. Damon had pulled me out of the cell, and held me against him in the basement hallway. The door to the other cage hung weakly on its hinges, and Stefan himself was crouched just inside of it, his shoulders heaving with heavy pants. Stefan stood slowly, to his full height, before turning around. He had blood smudged across his face, running from his mouth and dripping at his chin. It covered his shirt, his hands, and splattered up the length of his arms. His eyes had turned dark and menacing, and creeping veins surfaced across the expanse of his face. To me, the sight of him in that condition was terrifying, but I slowly registered that Damon was laughing against the side of my neck.

"Look how fucking weak you are." Damon spoke the words softly, almost in a whisper, but Stefan seemed to hear them loud and clear nonetheless and let a wild snarl rip from his lips. "I'm stronger than you, brother. Even with human blood in your system, I'm still a thousand times stronger than you, you know that."

Damon was taunting him, riling him up. Through my groggy state, I felt the man's hands slowly move from their vice grip and start to roam around my body. Stefan kept growling, louder still, as Damon pinched roughly at each of my nipples, squeezing and twisting them hard enough to make me cringe. His other hand slipped between my legs, touching me not out of pleasure, but to prove a point to his brother. Damon owned me now, there was nothing Stefan could do—that's the message he wanted to get across, and I didn't even bother struggling against him. Maybe it was stupid, but even though I hated it when Damon touched me, at least in that moment I was safer in his arms.

"I'm done with you, brother. Leave now, and you can keep your life." Stefan made no indication that he was going anywhere, but by the way his eyes were focused on my bleeding arm instead of my terrified features, I guessed that he wasn't planning on saving me anymore either. "If you try and fight me, you're dead and little miss Gilbert gets punished. Simple as that."

I watched as the brother's locked stares, and their glare lasted for a very long moment. Damon kept up the eye contact as he bent down, resting his chin in the crook of my shoulder, before adjusting his mouth against my throat and biting down.

"Stef…" I thought maybe my voice, would snap him out of his crazed trance, make him do anything instead of standing there bristling, but it was no use. His full attention cracked to the little beads of blood that built up on my neck when Damon pulled away. I felt nothing but horror as Stefan licked the remaining blood of his lips, and crouched down once more to pounce. Stefan had said that Damon had turned off his emotions, but in that moment it definitely seemed like the other way around.

Just as Stefan lunged at his older brother, in a flurry of impossibly fast movement, I was thrown across the room. I felt myself flying through the air, and then a moment of shocked, winded silence as my body hit the closest wall. I mustered up the strength to sit up only a second later, but Damon already had Stefan pinned to the floor. The younger brother was writhing and hissing underneath my captor, but it was obvious that it would do him no good. Damon clearly overpowered Stefan, and the fight, if it could even be called that, had been already won before it even started.

I let out a staggered gasp as Damon plunged his hand through Stefan's chest cavity, and leaned in close. I thought Stefan was for sure already dead, as he'd ceased any sort of struggling, but then I heard Damon growl three quiet words.

"Last chance, brother."


	9. Chapter 9

In that brief, fleeting moment, every part of me was sure that Stefan was going to die. Damon had punched straight through his chest, and unless I was imagining things, it looked as if he had a tight grip around his heart. One little tug, one tiny squeeze, and Stefan could be gone forever. I felt like a terrible person, but even though it was evident that my boyfriend was staring death in the face, I wasn't actually concerned about losing him. I was more worried about what exactly would happen to me if he was killed. As far as I knew, Stefan was the sole person who knew that I was being kept in the boarding house. Even if someone did come looking for me here, they'd need a proper load of evidence to actually get into the house and search for me. After the few days I'd been kept there, I had thought that Jenna or Jeremy would've sent the police to look for me. They'd seen that it was Damon before he attacked them, but maybe they weren't speaking out because they were unable. I had no idea what was going on in the world outside of my prison. Had Damon hypnotized my family into forgetting about me? Or, a terrible alternative to think about, had they never woken up after their heads were knocked into the wall? Whatever the case, if Stefan was killed my chances of ever escaping dropped below zero.

As I lay like a broken doll, propped up against the wall and watching the action unfold in front of me, I started to properly feel the effects of being tossed across the room. I didn't think anything was broken, but my entire body was definitely one big bruise. My vision was spinning faster than before, and it was difficult to comprehend entirely what was unfolding in front of me. Stefan's limp body, pinned under Damon's much stronger one, darted across my eyes, the image twisting and swirling, looking much farther away than it was supposed to be, as if I were gazing down a long tunnel.

My head dropped from the scene, and I finally made visual contact with my ripped up arm, if it could even be called an arm anymore. It was still bleeding like crazy, and there was already a hefty pool of blood around it from the short couple of seconds I'd been slumped there. Though the image was blurry and dark, I could still see that my muscles were visible, ripped out of their proper spots. There was even a hint of yellowish white poking out from underneath the gore—my bones. My stomach lurched, and I instinctively doubled over to throw up. My insides were beyond empty though, and I just ended up gagging dryly without so much as a string of saliva to drip from my mouth.

When I managed to muster up the strength to lift my head again, the two brothers were poised opposite each other, a good three feet of distance between them. Damon's hand had long been retracted from Stefan's torso, the latter was bent over onto his knees, wheezing and apparently trying to recover from the shocking attack. After a second, he straightened out again, and started to make his way to the stairs. I tried to catch Stefan's eyes as he passed, attempted desperately to get some sort of sound to rip from my throat so that I could trap his attention. Stefan refused to look at me, and disappeared up the stairs in a flash of speed, something along the lines of guilt creasing his features.

I was immediately in Damon's arms again, and he held me in a surprisingly comfortable embrace against his chest. One of his hands, which clutched my body close to his own, was still covered in his brother's blood, but at that point it was easy to ignore. There was so much blood everywhere, so much hurting, that just a little bit more didn't seem to matter.

Damon carried me up the stairs, just in time for me to see Stefan disappearing out the front door and into freedom, leaving me behind. Except, he wouldn't be heartless enough to just leave me there, at least I hoped not. It shouldn't matter that he'd been threatened, because he had an obligation to save me, to send some sort of aid to get me out of the boarding house and back into safe arms. He wouldn't just abandon me, right? I felt a heavy blanket of betrayal fall over me, with something like a deep sadness following close behind. If Stefan hadn't gone like he was instructed Damon would've killed him, but still the thought of him just leaving without so much as being able to look me in the eyes left an empty sort of gloom to blossom within me.

"He won't be back for you, Elena, at least you better hope he won't be. For your sake." Damon took slow, sauntering steps away from the front door, and into the big room with the fireplace. His rhythmic way of walking felt almost as if he was lulling me to sleep, and I had the need to burrow into his arms and close my eyes. I was so lightheaded from the lack of blood in my system, that it was as if I were floating weightlessly up and up and into the clouds. Every one of my nerves was fuzzy and numb, and it felt like my entire body was on fire yet frozen at the same time.

He lowered me down onto the couch where he'd destroyed my body at least a few times at that point, and I felt myself flinching violently and my stomach wanting to curl in on itself. I fully expected him to find the fire poker again, and have a round two on smashing my limbs to dust. Instead, he bounced down into a crouch in front of me, dropping so that our faces were level with each other. He cocked his head curiously to one side, and then to the other, his lips sluggishly turning upwards into a sick smile.

"Oh sweetie," He reached out, and brushed away a thick strand of hair that had fallen out of place and over my eyes, tucking it securely behind one of my ears. "I'm going to break you."

Maybe it was because I'd lost too much blood, but his words terrified me beyond belief. They were calm, collected, or at least much too so for someone who'd nearly just slaughtered their brother. I was looking up at him, but his face was fading into rippling waves of shadow, and I was struggling harder each second to keep my eyes open. The couch felt as if it had disappeared out from underneath me, and I was falling down deeper into nothingness. After the amount of times I'd lost consciousness in the past few days, I thought I might get used to the sensation, but that definitely wasn't the case. There was no pain, but at the same time I wasn't comfortable. It felt like my body had turned carbonated; fizzing and numbing like static. I was numb, but at the exact same time I could feel everything so strongly that it felt like nothing at all.

My eyes had fluttered shut, but I felt a pressure against my mouth, prying open my jaw and forcing something past my lips. Smooth skin brushed against my teeth, and a flavor unlike anything I'd ever tasted dripped onto my tongue and rolled down my throat. It tasted sweet, like nothing I'd had before, but there was more to it than that—an undertone of something tangy and metallic. Warm tingles rose from the places it had touched in my mouth, and the same odd sensation followed it as it seeped down into my stomach, and dissolved into my bloodstream.

As that same foreign warmth continued to spread through my body, it roused me. I opened my eyes to find Damon's arm coaxed against my mouth, his other hand wrapped securely around the back of my head, supporting me. My eyes widened and I immediately tried to push him away, but he refused to budge. My tongue brushed against his skin, feeling a deep gouge that ran across his wrist, permitting his blood to run into my mouth.

My nostrils flared, and I yelled into his arm, suddenly feeling sick. Why, why was he feeding me his blood? If he was a vampire, I was pretty sure it was supposed to be the other way around. He finally pulled himself away, and I instantly spat out the little bit of red liquid that still hadn't escaped down my throat, letting it drip down my chin.

"If you're going to be an ungrateful bitch about it, I'll stop giving it to you." Damon settled himself on the couch beside me, pulling my outstretched legs onto his lap and leaning back. He made himself comfortable, turned his head so that he could look at me.

I made a move to rip my legs away from him, feeling my strength starting to return quicker with every passing second, but a sudden sharp, unfamiliar feeling in my arm made my priorities wander elsewhere. I managed to shift my torn up limb into my line of sight, watching with bulging eyes and a sort of shocked confusion as the wound healed. It didn't hurt, not exactly, as it was the gory image that disturbed me more than anything. Muscles grew from the damaged ones, connecting together and swallowing up the slickness of my bones peeking through. Veins fused back into perfect little rivers, and layers of skin grew as good as new until all that was left was traces of drying blood. Bruises that had started to waft to the surface of my skin disappeared back to where they'd come from, and the overpowering headache I had subsided, being replaced with a giddy, flippant sort of hysteria.

"Your blood… It…" I turned my arm around in front of my face, ran a hand down the suddenly smooth surface of my skin. It was Damon's blood that had healed me. As a vampire, he drank and took away others' life forces, but in return his own could repair physical wounds. I had a lot of questions, so much that I never gotten to ask Stefan, so much that I never even thought to ask him until right at that moment.

Damon shifted in his spot beside me, reaching out to grab me around the waist. I let him reel me back towards him, not really having the strength or intentions to struggle, especially after he'd just saved me from the brink of death for the third or fourth time. He bound his arms around the small of my back in a tight embrace, and I was forced to settle my legs on either side of his hips, straddling him. I tried to curl into his chest in order to avoid his gaze, but I could still feel him staring holes in me. I jumped when he started to move his hands up and down the length of my back, and the lightness of his fingers' touch sent electric shivers straight to the core of my body, but at the same time made me feel incredibly uneasy. If he really was devoid of any emotions, the gentle actions made no sense.

He was leaning into me, his head nuzzling against my own. The gesture was strangely soothing, and before I realized it was happening, I found myself pressing back against him, grinding myself into his lap. I was cold, and weary, but he was warm and comfortable and made me feel more conscious than I ever could on my own. The whole situation was so wrong, and I knew there had to be something amiss in my own mind. Damon had hurt me, and kept on hurting me. He'd abuse me, but then he'd built up these intoxicatingly intimate moments that left me confused and brimming with a weird mixture of self-hatred, regret, and a need for more.

"Look at me…" His whisper was low and husky, his breath tickling the back of my ear. He used his forehead to coax mine against his, our faces as close as they could be without kissing, our noses brushing lazily against each other. "It's just us now."

I still refused to meet his intent look, and tried focusing on his cheek instead. Eventually, the temptation was too much to handle, and our gazes met. Close up his eyes were even more beautiful than I realized. A thing ring of deep sapphire ebbed around the outer edges of his irises, while the middle was filled with the color of a soft blue sky. Around his pupil, there were dazzling little auburn streaks, absolutely unnoticeable from even a foot farther away. Our eyelashes caught on each other when we blinked, and our breathing slowed in harmonized time, mixing into one another.

Damon adjusted my arrangement, shifting my body up and supporting it with one of his arms. He unbuckled his belt with his other hand, unbuttoning his pants and sitting up just enough so that he could slide them off his hips and let them slip down his legs, collecting into a pile around his ankles. When he set me back down on his lap, I felt the bulge in his underwear pressing against me.

He moved his grip to around my hips, very gently starting to buck them back and forth, forcing me to rub against him. It felt good though, and I ground myself back against him in a willing response. We were both beginning to breathe harder, and we were so pressed against each other that our lips started to brush together. When I felt his fingers travel back down, tugging at the band of his boxers, I consciously lifted myself off of him for a second so that he could pull them away. He took back control of my body, clutching my hips and guiding me slowly down onto his length. I shuddered as he gradually filled me up, and our mouth finally came together.

The kiss was different from when he forced me to on the bed. For a second it was sweet as sugar, but it took a fast turn in the opposite direction, becoming hungry, ravenous, and bottomless. It felt indescribably amazing, and I thought that perhaps I could fall into that moment and never get back up again. I didn't know what I was doing, and I didn't want to think about it. All I wanted to do was act on what felt right at the moment, not thinking about the consequences. And what was happening felt so, so right.

Damon shifted my body, and I helped move myself, sliding me slowly up his length, then pushing me all the way back down. Our kiss broke and I let out a long moan, letting my head drop against his shoulder, and my hands slid tighter around the back of his neck. He repeated the thrust, keeping the agonizingly sluggish pace, and sliding one of his hands between my legs, starting to play with me.

"You have no one now Elena, only me." He groaned the words into my hair, clutching me closer. "My brother left you here, and the rest… they're all dead."

"What?" I didn't mean for it to, but the word left my lips in the form of a euphoric sigh. I couldn't stop myself from continuing to respond to his body.

"You were there when I killed them, remember?" I tried to stop moving, trailed my hands from around the back of his neck to push on his chest, but he brought me closer, holding me tight against him. "I smashed Jeremy and Jenna's skulls like eggshells."

A pressure was building up inside of me, and I wondered if I was even thinking straight, whether I was hearing what Damon was actually saying. He refused to cease what he was doing, and if anything his thrusts and rubs quickened in pace. I felt myself jolting forward, and having to bite into my tongue to stop myself from screaming out in pleasure.

"Didn't you hear the sound their heads made when I crushed them?"

"N-no…no…" I was weak, I was so weak.

"And then the next day," Damon paused to nibble softly at the side of my neck with dull teeth, rammed himself harder inside of me until I was forced to let out little gasps. "when you were having a little sleep on the couch here," I felt my body building up into a period of elated ecstasy, and the pressure in my core was almost unbearable. "I found Bonnie, and Caroline, Matt and his fucked up sister, even that dick Tyler Lockwood…"

"Please no… no..." My tone of voice sounded more like I wanted him to continue.

"And I gathered them all up, and ripped their throats out before they could even blink." The pleasure inside of me exploded, and I crumpled against Damon's body, shaking and moaning and feeling all the wrong things. I didn't want to believe what he was saying, but the seriousness in his voice seemed final. I felt moisture against my cheeks, dully registered that I was crying, breathing hard into his smooth chest. I couldn't even understand what I was feeling, a jumble of too many emotions to handle. Pleasure and wanting and shock and hatred and sadness. I didn't let myself confront them, didn't let myself feel anything. I concentrated on the softness of his skin against my face, and tried to stop my entire body from trembling.


	10. Chapter 10

I lay in the middle of the shower, the spray of water long gone cold. I watched bleakly as swirls of my blood twisted around the drain, winding into inky images before disappearing down the pipes. The sharp sting between my legs had since dulled into a monotone buzz, spreading through the rest of my limbs, and leaving me as heavy as a lead weight. It had been quite a while since Damon left me there, and even if he called me to get out, I wasn't sure if I'd obey.

I was numb, and everything and everyone seemed meaningless—unimportant. I felt no sorrow, no regret, absolutely nothing, not anymore. I kept wondering if, despite being a human, I'd found a way to shut my emotions off as well. Maybe Damon and I shared something in common in that sense.

The faces of the people that once meant something to me were glued to the inside of my eyelids. I imagined their features, grey and waxy from death, eyes closed as they're lowered into a six foot deep hole. I wondered if there'd even be room in the cemetery for that many bodies, or would they have to cut down some more of the forest to make room?

The past week or so had been a blurry mess of hazy memories and dull pain. I didn't really pay attention to what Damon was doing to me, or what he was saying. I drifted in and out of consciousness, healed and was beat again, the same thing over and over until it seemed like an almost normal routine. My vision was blacked out of anything happening in reality, and instead it focused on messy images of my friends and family. Situations of the past that got all mixed and blurred together and played on repeat until I couldn't tell them apart.

I remembered the week before my parents' car had lost control and flown off the bridge. Matt and I were at some stupid party. He was drunk, so was I. I don't know if I really wanted to, but before I knew it we were in the back of his car. I was naked with the exception of my bra, and he still had on his whole shirt. The sex was awkward and messy, as we were both confused virgins before that night. I remember him holding me afterwards, but I was uncomfortable and his shirt was damp with sweat. I broke up with him the next day.

My mind took me back to a thanksgiving dinner with my family. I couldn't have been older than thirteen, and Jeremy even younger than that. We were seated around the big dining room table at my grandma's house, and Aunt Jenna was there too with her boyfriend. I remembered that night because Uncle John had come knocking at the door, but Dad wouldn't let him in. I remembered that night because on the car ride home we got a call from an ambulance saying that my grandma had suffered from a heart attack, and died.

Then I was at Caroline's fourth birthday, and she was crying because she didn't get the Barbie she'd wanted so badly. Bonnie was in the corner of the room, sucking her thumb, and I sat with her, wishing I could be back home snuggled in my mom's lap as she read me a story. The two of us watched as Caroline took her spoiled rage out on the people and things around her, tugging hard at Vicki Donovan's pigtails and pushing her two-tier cake straight off the table. It exploded as it bounced off the floor, and I flinched when a chunk of icing struck my cheek.

Of course I kept thinking of the night of the accident. I could feel the water filling up my lungs as if I were still in the moment, my vision swaying and blurry, but the image of my drowning parents in front of me crystal clear. But more often than that, a sort of weird memory surfaced, one I thought I'd tucked away for good. It was a month after mom and dad's death, and I came home to find the house heavy with the smell of pot. I followed the scent to Jeremy's room, and found him curled up on his bed crying. There were two empty bottles of expensive liquor, from dad's secret stash, discarded on his sheets. Jer didn't stop sobbing when I entered the room, though he settled down a little when I lied down beside him on the mattress. He thought I'd be mad at him, and looked surprised when he saw nothing but sadness on my own face. He curled into me, and it was strange. I'd hugged my brother before, of course, but I'd never had him bury his face into my neck, curl his nails into the back of my shirt. I'd never felt his tears against my skin. And then, he was kissing me, and I responded. It didn't mean anything. He was drunk and high out of his fucking mind, and we both just needed someone to take our feelings out on. So we made out, and he pushed my shirt up above my breasts, stuck his hands in my bra. It lasted without words until he passed out, and then I left his room and we never so much as mentioned that afternoon again.

Over the course of a week, it's funny how many memories can come back if they're all you think about. I remembered bathing with Matt when we were just young toddlers, I remembered a sleepover in the tenth grade where Caroline stubbed her toe and swore so loudly that she woke up her mom. I remembered walking in on Tyler and some chick having sex in the girls' locker room, and I remembered this pretty bookmark my mom bought for me when I was in middle school. The images wouldn't stop, like I was chained to a chair in front of a television with my eyes taped open to keep watching. They were all I really had left, and I both wanted them and hated them at the same time. Yea, they were the only indication I had that those people had ever existed, but they served as a reminder that I wouldn't ever see them again. They were gone, dead. Everyone was dead except for Stefan, who'd abandoned me anyways. Damon was right, he was all I had. And he wouldn't let me die, wouldn't let me escape, so I had to accept that I was stuck with him.

The bathroom lights were off, but the windows provided more than enough sunshine. After a while though the room dimmed as the sun set, and before I knew it I was in total darkness. The water was like a continuous sheet of ice pouring down on me, despite the fact that I didn't really feel it anymore. My skin felt beyond wrinkled, but I didn't have the drive to look down and see for myself, not that I could anyways since it was too dark. I wondered if Damon had finally gotten bored with me and left me to rot alone, and that thought tore me away from my past for a second, made me feel the first tiny surge of happiness I'd had in a long time. It was sad, stupid, that I got a little thrill out of the prospect of dying. No one thinks like that unless there's something seriously wrong with them.

I tried falling asleep, or at least closing my eyes, but the water kept finding a way to fall into my nostrils, and I jolted back awake whenever it did. Though most of me wanted to die, the idea of drowning was forever branded in my subconscious as an immediate danger. So I lay with my blank stare to the ceiling, sometimes counting the tiles after I'd had time to adjust to the darkness, and sometimes drifting back into the arms of my family and friends.

The night turned back into day, and I felt less alive than I'd ever felt before. The constant stream of water over my body had become familiar, and it felt like the soft flowing over my skin was naturally part of me. My jaw had gone slack, and my mouth hung open slightly. I swallowed any water that made it past my lips, that or let it build up and run down my chin like a river, as if I were some kind of statue in a fountain.

When I finally decided to get up, it was by my own choice, something which I'd almost forgotten I had in the time I'd spent at the boarding house. It was almost impossible to move, so I took baby steps. First I managed to roll myself over onto my stomach. I knew it'd be a bad idea to immediately try and stand, but I at least managed to get onto my knees, my hands shaking with effort to hold up the slight weight of my body. If I left the bathroom, would Damon be waiting to punish me? Did I even really care if he was?

I slid the palms of my hands and my knees across the floor, crawling slowly out of the shower. I didn't feel like backtracking and reaching up to turn off the tap. Let an entire ocean's worth of water come spurting out of that fixture for all I cared. As soon as I was out though, and positioned on the mat slumped against the floor, the lack of water flowing around me made me feel uneasy. I wanted to scuttle back inside the shower, stay in the spray of moisture and turn into some sort of sea creature. Instead I took a deep breath, started to move forward. I made it safely around the corner and into the bedroom, leaving a trail of water behind me.

Damon was nowhere to be found, so I pressed on until I got to the end of the bed. Once there, one hand gripped the sheets while the other caught hold on one of his bed posts. Slowly, steadily, I pulled myself into a standing position, leaning heavily against the mattress and trying to cease the knocking in my knees. I felt like I'd caught a cold, and someone had attached weights to all of my limbs. The water had felt so good, so indifferent while I was in it, but after getting out my body was in a similar condition to if I had been hit by a truck. Plus I was cold, freezing. The ends of my fingers, besides being wrinkled, were tinted blue. Maybe I had hypothermia, or maybe I was just imagining the dark tint in my digits. I was getting accustomed to hallucinations after all.

A crumple of black material caught my eyes against the white bed sheets. At that point, I was very much used to being constantly naked. I hadn't worn clothes in almost two weeks, maybe more depending on how long exactly I'd been in Damon's care. Either way, something in my head urged me to reach out and take it, so I did. The shirt was soft, and turned inside out. Without bothering to fix it, I pulled it over my head, the feeling of cotton embracing my body feeling foreign and unnatural. I hugged my arms tight around my middle, cuddling the article of clothing against my skin, rubbing it in. But then I pulled it up to my face, breathed in its thick sent, and it smelt like Damon completely and totally. The shirt was back off of me and hurtled across the room faster than I'd thought about putting it on in the first place. I was disgusted at myself for even trying it on at all, and felt the need to throw myself into the open fire downstairs to purify my skin. Whose shirt did I think it was anyways besides his? Of course it was Damon's…

I took my first two-legged step without support from the bed, and I almost went tumbling straight back down to the floor. I caught myself though, and stood there with my arms stretched out for balance, taking long breaths. Then I tried again, and soon I was walking at an almost normal pace. I disappeared out Damon's doorway, padded my way down the empty hallway, and hesitated at the top of the stairs. There was no sign of my captor, and I wasn't sure if it was a trap, or if I was just terribly luckily.

I took the stairs slowly, holding onto the railing for dear life and trying not to trip over my own two feet. The whole experience was so thrilling. I hadn't been truly alone like that in such a long time, I couldn't remember the last time I hadn't felt Damon's eyes watching me, or Damon's arms dragging me to where I was supposed to go. At the bottom of the stairs, I roamed through the living room, past the fireplace, into the kitchen, still no sign of the man I kept expecting to see. Half of me was tempted to call out and see if he came sauntering from the shadows, but the other half, the stronger half, guided my steps down the main hallway, to the front door.

It was wide open.

It was like the open door was hypnotizing me, pushing me towards it. I willingly let it, entranced by thoughts of sunshine and grass between my bare toes. As I continued forward, something else touched my feet though, ripping my gaze from the door and down to the floorboards. My eyes widened in horror when I noticed I was standing in a large pool of dried blood, the edges already turned a rusty brown, crusting and curling up from the wood beneath it.

I jumped away from the puddle, frantically wiping my feet on a clean patch of floor, smudging it red. The stain might've probably been mine, but I couldn't remember what from. The rest of the house was spotless, void of the countless times my blood and gore had been sprayed across the rooms, so it didn't really make sense for that to still be there. Unless, it wasn't my blood, but Damon's. What if something had happened to him while I was upstairs? I wouldn't have totally been able to hear anything from the shower anyways, and that might also explain why the door was open.

My mouth felt dry, and my hearing became extra sensitive. I was scared. If Damon was hurt, or dead, who did it to him, and what if they hadn't left the house yet? Cautiously, I looked over my shoulder. I strained to hear a sign of another presence in the house, but my heart had picked up so quickly that all I could hear was my pulse, loud and frantic in my ears. It could be Stefan, or even the police, but they wouldn't have just taken Damon and left. They would've come looking for me too, right? I turned back towards the door, shaking out my suddenly sweaty palms, trying to convince myself that nothing worse could be done to me than what had already happened. I shouldn't waste any time or effort on fear. I could handle whatever would happen, or at least I hoped I could.

I held a hand out towards the open doorway, expecting my palm to press against the invisible barrier. I stumbled when it didn't, falling the rest of the way out the door, and having to shield my eyes against the patches of sunlight that cornered me on the deck. I was out.

To one side, the porch swing creaked with a slight breeze, and that same wind sent goose bumps flying up the length of my body. The air was chilly, and nothing outside was green anymore. Late autumn, with skeletal grey trees, and a ground piled high with crunchy, golden leaves. Not the ideal weather for having no clothes on, but I didn't want to risk wasting more time by trying to go back inside and find something to wear.

The weathered wood of the deck felt strange in comparison to the smooth hardwood on the inside of the house, scuffing the soles of my feet and shooting a painful splinter into one of my toes. I took a step forward, ignoring the tiny jolt of pain and starting down the short flight of stairs, continuing until I reached the bottom. Something was off, because it couldn't be as easy as that, so simple. But then I felt the grass beneath my feet, and even though it was all brown and dead, I felt a surge of life.

Then, before I could process anything else, I was running, and the wind was tangling my hair, billowing it into a thousand knots around my head. I felt strangely elated, hysterically high. There was no pain, not even when I felt a sharp twig stab into the bottom of my foot. It was crazy, because I was stark naked, running across the front yard, into the forest, seemingly without a care in the world. I knew I shouldn't have been getting my hopes up, as the whole situation was just too suspicious, but at the same time a great weight ascended from my shoulders and I felt like I could take off from the ground and fly. The muscles in my legs were screaming at me to slow down, and I was panting so hard that I could barely breathe, but I kept running.

As I sprinted through the forest I felt leaves and burrs catching in my hair, I felt branches and thorns scarring up my body, shredding the soles of my feel, but the adrenaline kept me going. The energy tearing through me was real, as real as anything could ever get. The world was a blur, flying past me. In that moment, I was invincible. I felt wildly happy, and I was grinning so hard that I was sure my face was going to rip clean in half. My body was going to burst open, evaporate into a million bursts of the brightest light. I couldn't believe that was all it took for me to feel better.

With each new bound I started to become more like myself, or at least as much of myself I had left. All the same, I was Elena Gilbert. I had no one, nothing left, but I still had myself. Why? Because I was a survivor. If no one could take care of me, if no one could save me, then I had to do it myself. I refused to let Damon break me, I was done with him controlling me. That blood had to have been his, I was suddenly so sure of it. He was dead, dragged off into a ditch somewhere, and I was blissfully free. He couldn't catch me now, nothing or no one could. The forest had swallowed me whole, and I wasn't ever going to look back.

I ran and ran for what seemed like forever, until the light in the sky dipped under the canopy of trees in an orange haze and disappeared over the horizon. I ran, drunk on my new-found happiness, until I couldn't see anything except for dark shadows. I ran, until I realized that I'd gotten myself miserably lost and tangled up in a mess of identical plants and endless trees.

I ran until I heard a crunch of leaves behind me, and the telltale snap of a branch.

"Game over, Elena."


	11. Chapter 11

I'd never felt myself sinking so fast. Pure, unsullied bliss, to absolute, overwhelming dread before I could even process the words he'd spoken. Just the sound of his voice was enough, or even the second before that when I heard his footsteps, I'd already known who it was. I didn't run, because it was too late for that, and my adrenaline rush had diminished into an onslaught of extreme exhaustion and complete terror. I refused to turn around, and waited until I could sense him standing right behind me, just close enough so that we weren't touching, not quite.

"Looks like Miss Depression has been faking her little downward spiral, hmm?" He leaned forward, his words brushing against my ears before he veered back away and started to circle me, like some sort of wild beast going in for the kill. "I was wondering why it was so easy to break you."

He paused when he'd made his way to the spot directly in front of me, and I didn't, couldn't, meet his eyes. I was frozen in place, paralyzed with fear. My entire body was rigid, so stiff that I wasn't even shaking. My hands were in tight fists at my sides, and my chest was still heaving with effort to steady my breathing back into a normal pace.

"Oh my, my, what am I going to do with you, Elena?" He had caught me off guard, the whole situation had caught me off guard. I should have seen in coming though, and I think in the very back of my mind, in the deepest pit of my stomach, I'd known the whole thing was some sort of sick setup, but I fell for it anyways, walked directly into his trap. God, this had been a test, to see whether I had actually turned into his own personal doll or not. I'd never been his obedient little pet though. The past week, of me letting him do whatever he wanted without struggle, that was because I'd been shocked into some sort of deep depression. It was like I had been trapped in a bottomless hole, and I hadn't even wanted to try and get out.

Things had changed though. Everyone I loved was gone, but I'd made the choice not to let their deaths destroy what I had left of my own life. I was a fighter, I'd always been a fighter, and I couldn't let that change just because I was weak, and vulnerable, and sad. There was a fire inside of me, and Damon Salvatore wasn't going to have the satisfaction of putting it out.

He reached out for me, his hands clamping down on either one of my shoulders, and he leaned in close. The smirk on his face was so satisfied that it was just downright insulting. He thought he'd won, he thought he finally had me for good. I wasn't sure whether he was right, but either way I refused to go down without a fight.

Damon's hands started to move from my shoulders, slowly down the front of my chest. Before he'd barely reached my breasts, I shot a hand out, slapping him hard enough across the face to send his head cracking to one side, and making me feel as if I'd all but broken my hand. In all honestly, it had been a stupid move, and I blamed it on the slight traces of adrenaline still sizzling at the edges of my veins. If Damon at all wanted to he could overpower me within a second, so even if my intent was to not get broken by him, that didn't mean I could physically fight back. He was a thousand times stronger than me, if not more, and even faster than that. I expected him to retaliate by slapping me back, so hard that I flew against a tree and broke open my skull against the branches, or even just lash out and snap my neck, but he didn't. Instead, he did absolutely nothing, which actually ended up scaring me even more. Of course he wasn't just going to accept that I hit him, so he must've been planning a later punishment—something I could admit that I definitely wasn't looking forward to.

He just stared at me for what had to have been only a couple seconds, but what felt like hours. His body had a tense, angered posture, as if he were frozen in shock, completely surprised at my actions. The side of his cheek where I'd hit him was radiating heat, and a hand-shaped welt blossomed across it. Just as soon as his astonishment showed, it was gone, replaced with a smug smirk and furious, narrowed eyes. Next, I guess it was his turn to surprise me, as he quickly turned on one heel and started to simply walk away.

"Come." I didn't even know it was possible to convey as much raw anger and dominance as Damon had in that single word. It wasn't a request, it wasn't a polite suggestion— it was a direct order, a command. All the same, I stared at him as if he had three heads. I had just escaped the house, then ran free through the forest for god knows how long, so why wasn't he straight up dragging me back by my hair? I didn't even want to know why the hell he thought I would go with him willingly, but even so he kept walking, disappearing farther into the woods by the second.

I did what most people would do, and took off sprinting in the other direction. It was so dark though, even with my eyes adjusted to the night, that I only got a three-foot head start before I tripped on a tree root like some idiot girl in a horror movie. I flew towards the ground, expecting to land in a pile of leaves or a puddle of mud, but I'd actually managed to stumble right off the side of a hill. My heart flew into my throat as I tumbled painfully down, flailing my hands out in random directions, trying to regain control of my body and attempt to grab onto something before I fell to my death. Suddenly, I wasn't rolling anymore, and Damon had me in a bone-shattering grip on even ground.

"Let go!" I writhed in his arms, but he refused to put me down.

As he carried me off, I refused to give up. I squirmed and kicked and clawed, snapping my teeth at his hands every time he tried to adjust his grip on me. I left nasty scratches across his face and the length of his arms, and I was proud of them despite the fact that they disappeared seconds after they were made. And then there was the screaming. I'd found my voice again, and I was wailing bloody murder, a sound loud enough to make his eardrums bleed, and hopefully call attention to anyone else in the vicinity of the woods. Most of me knew it was useless though, because not many people ventured into a private property forest in the middle of the night.

With each step he took, I could see Damon getting more and more furious. Even in the dark I noticed a heated flush of red sink into his cheeks, and his eyes narrow so much that they were nothing more than sinister slits. The hold he had on me was past the point of painful, and his breath was getting heavy and shaping into something more like a snarl. I thought about stopping my struggling. I obviously wasn't going to be able to wiggle my way out of his arms, and no one would ever hear my cries. All I was doing was probably creating more pain for myself by angering him. Before I could make the decision to stop or not though, Damon took off at such an incredible speed that I shut up anyways, shocked into silence by the blur of shadows whooshing past us and the sharp wind against my skin.

I didn't even understand how fast we were going until I saw gleaming lights through the thinning trees and underbrush in front of us. Damon had arrived at the boarding house in what seemed like a matter of seconds, whereas it had taken me hours to get so far away from it. He came to a screeching halt, sending me jolting in his hands. Just as soon as he was holding me, I found myself being hurtled through the air, before hitting the ground hard. I slid through a pile of slick, half-dried mud, feeling the disgusting substance coat my body and push its way into my nostrils. I scrambled to pick my head up so that I could breathe, but he was on me before I could even process the thought of doing so.

He sat his full weight on the small of my back, his knees sinking into the sludge on either side of me. One of his powerful hands grabbed a handful of my hair, ripping my head upwards for just a second before he smothered my face back into the earth. I thrashed underneath him, panicking as I swallowed a mouthful of soil, felt myself choking and failing miserably at breathing. Damon leaned forward then, his weight shifting painfully on my spine, and put his lips close to my ear.

"With the way you're acting, Elena, you're just begging me to hold your face in the dirt and rape you until you can't move." His words, combined with his poisonous tone of voice, made me fall completely still. My body was begging me to cough, screaming at me to find a way to breathe again, but I shoved those feelings away and clenched my lungs. Gradually, Damon let up on the grip he had in my hair and I reared out of the mud, spitting and sputtering and taking in long, gasping intakes of air. As I panted, I kept my eyes on the site of the boarding house just up ahead. It looked so inviting, so beautiful, and yet the sight of it made me feel utterly nauseous. I didn't want to go back.

Suddenly Damon was dragging me back to my feet, yet I was still stumbling and trying to regulate my breathing. I fell against him and he immediately shoved me off, sending me dropping against a nearby tree for support. Looking down at my body, I realized I didn't even hold a need for clothes in that moment anyways. The crusted dirt stuck so fully to my skin that it looked as if I wore a blackish-brown body suit.

Abruptly, Damon pointed sharply to the house up ahead, and made a jagged motion with his head.

"Get inside."

I wanted to think his words over, weigh my options, so I hesitated for just a second. Damon wasn't having any of that though, and in less than a second, with no hesitation, he sped in front of me, ripping off a pointed branch from the tree behind me and stabbing it straight through the palm of my hand.

"Did I fucking stutter!?" A sharp pain ripped through my palm, flourishing up the length of my arm and through the rest of my body, forcing a strangled scream through my lips. His action had completely caught me off guard. He'd given me absolutely no room to make a choice, only enough time to obey. I stared down in horror at the stick lodged through my flesh, my chest heaving wildly. I was so absolutely terrified that I could hardly process the pain, my eyes bugging wildly as I lifted my hand to get a closer look at the injury.

"Pull the fucking stick out of yourself and get inside." At that point I was shaking, and my breathing had hitched into an octave of hysteric hyperventilation. I moved my other hand to take a tight grip on the branch, but at soon as I touched it and felt it move inside of me I jumped back. I couldn't do it. I literally, physically couldn't do it.

"D-Damon.." I went to take a small step towards him, but before I could even barely move he slapped me hard across the face, sending me smacking back into the tree. My hand hit against the trunk, sending the stick shooting farther into my skin, and making another howl of pain gurgle up from my throat. It was as if I could feel a million little splinters cutting into the gore of my hand, as if the branch had teeth that had anchored themselves into my skin.

"TAKE IT OUT!" I leaned heavily against the tree at my back, and a strangled sob rippled through my lips, blubbering tears bunching at the corners of my eyes. When I closed them shut tight, the tears broke and fell like streams down my cheeks, gathering together once again at my chin and dripping off onto my chest. I knew if I didn't act upon Damon's orders, he would only hurt me worse. All those thrilling thoughts about freedom and independence and rebellion were shrinking and falling away into a shadowed recess of my mind. I bit down hard enough into my cheeks to draw blood, while my free hand took an iron grip on the stick. I forced myself to keep my eyes securely shut, and in one swift tug, I unsheathed the hunk of wood from my skin.

Another blaring shout of pain echoed from my throat, and blood pooled into my mouth from the bite marks I'd scarred into the sides of my cheeks. I peeled my fingers away from the bloody stick, letting it drop down against the ground with a dull thud. I was weeping loudly again, but immediately turned away to start towards the house. My steps were unsteady and I kept stumbling on forest debris, disorientated from the pain gushing out of the gaping wound in my palm.

I heard Damon behind me, walking dangerously close, and making sure I didn't dare step a finger out of line.

"Stop your whimpering. You did this to yourself." He spoke harshly as we climbed up the boarding house steps, and gave me an aggressive shove through the still-open doorway. I guess in my hurry to escape earlier, I hadn't shut it.

"Where did the barrier go?" It obviously wasn't the time or place to be asking questions, but in my nervousness it just sort of slipped out. The subject had been floating around the front of my head for a while, not just how the invisible walls got there or disappeared, but what exactly they were made of. It definitely wasn't glass or plastic, and besides that I couldn't think of any other sensible conclusions.

"I revoked that compulsion when you were in one of your depressed stupors." I was surprised upon getting an answer, to say the least, even if I didn't fully understand what he meant. Once back inside the house, I stopped walking, and turned back around to face him. He still looked angry, and his lips pulled into a tight line as he watched a bit of mud drip off my body and land on the expensive-looking rug underneath my feet.

"Damo—"

He had me pinned against the wall by my throat before I could even blink. My good hand shot up to try and pry his tight fingers off my neck, and my feet scuttled against the flooring in an attempt to regain my footing. My mouth was opened slightly, wheezing for air. After just having my face smothered into the earth, Damon choking me wasn't really a welcome action.

"Shut up." He released me and my body slumped heavily against the wall, sliding down until I was a crumpled pile on the floor. I let my head fall back against the wood panels, and inhaled deeply a few times. Each breath I took was a high-pitched rasp, and my heart beat so quickly that I thought it might fly out of my chest. My mind was telling me that I should be used to Damon's treatment by then. It had been at least two weeks, and every day was jam-packed with the same tortures. He'd bite me, slap me around, stick himself into every orifice of my body, then heal me and do it all over again. It was like an infinite loop of everything I never wanted—my own personal, literal hell. I wanted to just let go again like I had the past week, more than anything, but how would that be any different than truly dying? I couldn't let Damon win. It was going to be the most difficult challenge I'd ever had, but no matter how much he hurt me, no matter how much I wanted to just give in to him, I had to stay strong.

It wasn't game over, it was game on.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys. Here's the new chapter that never got to get posted on fanfiction.net before my story got deleted. I hope my old readers are able to find this, and still get to tune in to what happens next. As for new readers, I really hope you guys enjoy. :)  
> Lots of love~  
> Thanks for your support, guys. :)

"Sit."

When I didn't immediately comply, his slap sent me plunging into the floor. I hit the polished wood hard, and skidded across it, skinning my knee and further injuring my already ruined hand. I didn't want to be scared any longer, so I replaced the fear already bubbling inside of me with a different emotion—anger. Refusing to cringe into the pain, I hoisted myself up, trembling with effort as I grabbed the back of a nearby chair to steady my feet. I stood, poised myself up on my tiptoes, and matched Damon's glare with an equally fiery one of my own.

"Sit." He repeated the command, and still I did nothing. He hit me again, on the same cheek as last time, with ten times more force. I flew backwards through the hall, felt my body screaming out in shock as I hit the corner of a wall, white-hot flames of pain flying up my spine. I slumped to the floor, and fell forward onto my hands and knees. My head hung low enough so that my hair fell like a curtain over my face, shielding the expression of weakness sweeping over my features. I didn't know if I was strong enough to go through with an act of rebellion. The last time Damon had fed me was days ago, and my stomach had long gone hungry again. God knows how I'd even managed to sprint through the forest for a few hours, when I could barely even withstand two measly slaps.

The toe of Damon's leather shoe suddenly made contact with my stomach in a sharp kick, winding me and knocking the support of my limbs out from under me. The sharp waves of agony sifted from the core of my stomach to the rest of my body, and I forced myself to lay flat, gasping wildly for some sort of air.

Through the blanket of hair over my eyes I saw a shadow fall over me. Damon's hands broke through my vision, parting my hair away from my face and tucking it behind my ears. He was crouched in front of me, his face holding a solidly solemn expression as he examined the shameful tears flowing freely down my cheeks, no longer hidden.

"Sit." After I'd managed to regulate my breathing, he repeated the word a third time in a softer voice. It sounded less like a barking order, and more like a warm invitation. I sat up slowly, avoiding putting any kind of pressure on my wounded palm, which was still viciously loosing blood, dripping all over the floor. Damon sat back on his heels as he watched me stand, once against steady myself of the closest piece of furniture. Dirt and mud dripped from my body, and a trail of it had already been scattered from the front door to the place I stood in the living room. I kept eye contact with him as I started walking forward, and still didn't break it as I rounded the sofa in front of the fire, and sat down. My stomach was ceaselessly throbbing, and there was a sharp, stinging pull from within it. Something was seriously damaged, but I needed to reassure myself that I shouldn't fear the pain. If anything got too severe, Damon would just heal me and start over again. He wouldn't let me die, or at least that's what I was hinging my survival plan on.

Damon stood and walked after me, and one of his hands ran over my tangled hair as he passed, tugging gently at the matted knots.

"Good girl." The words sickened me, because they were the opposite of what I wanted to hear. He took a seat on the sofa opposite me, and crossed one leg over the other as he leaned back into the plush cushions. I refused to let my own posture go slack, and straightened my spine, tipping my chin upwards and drawing my mouth into a straight line. While my injured hand lay limp and numb at my side, I brought the other one to my lap, and rested it there against my earth-streaked skin.

"I'm not going to compel you anymore, Elena. You're going to obey me without compulsion, do you understand?"

There was a silent pause, with no sound but the crackling fire, until Damon spoke once more.

"You answer when I ask you a question, Elena." His tone was viciously calm, completely unnerving. I sat very still, and tried to hide the fact that I was trembling. I finally broke eye contact with him, as it became too difficult to hold his intense stare, and my line of vision took up residence on the floor instead. Still, I didn't speak, or give him so much as a nod of recognition. Suddenly, before I could even see him move, Damon had pulled me off the couch and was dragging me by the hair. By the time my body had even processed what was happening, Damon was holding me in front of the roaring fireplace, and I started to squirm wildly, feeling waves of heat warm the front of my body.

His hands wound around my hair until his grip was tight enough to rip off my scalp, then he plunged my face forward into the blistering flames. An alarm went off in my head, and I tried to scream, but found that my cries sizzled into a shocked silent by the time they left my lips. The scorching tongues of fire lapped at my cheeks, and I could feel my skin blistering, bubbling over, peeling sickeningly fast from a sensitive pink into a burned sort of black.

"Answer me, Elena." He seemed unmoved by my pain, and that was all too apparent with the calmness of his voice. My mind was in a different place though, blocking out anything I was feeling, trying to protect me, but it finally came reeling back and I regained a voice of my own. First I let out a gasp, which transitioned into a yell, finally shaping into panicked, yet coherent words.

"I understand!" The words pitched into a scream, and I writhed wildly I his grip. I couldn't see, I couldn't breathe, and I could feel my hair, my skin, everything burning away, swelling and smoldering.

"Call me Master." He didn't have to tell me twice.

"Master! I understand, Master!" Just as soon as the shrieking syllables burst from my mouth, I was ripped away from the flames. Damon threw me roughly behind him onto the rug, and I lay frozen in jolted shock. I could still feel waves of heat sifting off my skin, hurting more than anything I could ever remember. I didn't dare move a muscle, terrified to even try blinking. I was hyperventilating again—the breaths erupting from my throat coming in fast, high-pitched wheezes. I didn't even care that I'd given into his requests, because I couldn't have held out any longer. I wasn't strong enough, I would never be strong enough.

Damon's form shadowed my own slumped body as he stepped closer, towering over me and leaning down to look into my eyes. He smiled at the sight of my badly burned face, his grin stretching further upon noticing the fear gracing my features.

"My brother may be gone, but I'm having too much fun to let you go." His expression turned thoughtful, and I watched the best I could without moving my head as he crossed his arms over his chest, and left his spot hovering over me to sit back down on the sofa. "I own you now."

The first time I met Damon, in the same place I lay struggling to breathe, he didn't seem so bad. There was a certain darkness to him, something more mysterious and inviting than the peculiar brooding surrounding Stefan, but he hadn't been evil. He'd been kind to me, made me laugh, even made me blush in a sort of flattered, giddy, embarrassment. Now, on the other hand, he had no morals. He did what he wanted, because he wanted to do it, with no exceptions. He'd definitely turned off his emotions, turned off anything inside of him that allowed him to feel guilt or remorse, and I wondered if there was a way to turn them back on. Stefan had described it like a switch, so the flip couldn't be permanent. Maybe I shouldn't be concentrating so hard on rebelling against Damon. Maybe I should be putting more effort into helping him, and through doing that I could help myself. What could have hurt him so bad that he didn't want to feel anymore? Did I even want to know?

"Get on your hands and knees." I attempted to hoist myself into a sitting position, but the more I tried to ignore the ache in my face and get on with other things, the more agonizing it got. It was worse on the right, as Damon had held that side closer to the flames, but the left wasn't much better. I couldn't breathe out of my nose because of the blistering sting, and I could only close one of my eyes. I didn't dare try to move even a single muscle in the vicinity of my head, terrified at the pain that would follow. I wanted Damon to heal me again, because now that I knew he could do it so easily, I longed for it.

Going slower, I rolled over onto my stomach, before pushing myself off the ground with my good hand and balancing on my knees, like Damon had asked. I wanted to squeeze my eyes shut, and block out the world around me, but I was physically unable. Instead, I stared forward into the bright hearth, the sight of the lively flames making me feel a bout of terrified nausea. I willingly let my head drop, and my hair fell like a shield over my face.

"Okay Elena, this is what's going to happen." The sound of Damon's shoes against the floor echoed loudly as he once again stood up from his seat and made his way directly in front of me, blocking off what little of the flames I could still see through my matted hair. There was crusted mud on his expensive-looking shoes, expanding up the length of his pant legs and stopping just above his knees. "You're going to beg me,  _plead_  me, to fuck you, and when I'm convinced that you really want it, I'll give it to you."

My breath hitched in my throat, and something like a whimper escaped through my teeth. I could feel a lump of sobs gather in the back of my mouth, and I wanted to cry, but my tear ducts were too damaged from the fire to produce any moisture. I felt my body caving inwards, and my knees gave out from under me, making me curl into a sort of fetal position on the floor.

"If you're going to act like that, sweetheart, I'm going to fuck you anyways, but it's going to be much less pleasant."

I coiled tighter around myself, wishing I could melt into the floor and disappear. I wanted to fight, more than anything, but I was failing miserably. It was like a constant tug-o-war in my mind. Half of me was screaming to stand up for myself, and take any pain or punishment that was thrown my way, but the other half was demanding that I give in to Damon and save myself from the misery I didn't deserve. If I went along with it though, I wouldn't only lose my dignity, but I'd lose myself. I knew I couldn't handle being tortured, but somehow I had to find a way to get through it. Any other option was unacceptable.

At the sudden sound of scraping metal, I lifted my head, and felt a sudden jolt of dread paralyze me. Damon had made his way around to the hearth, and I watched with bulging eyes as he once again picked up the fire poker he'd beat me with before. He looked over his shoulder, just brief enough so that he could make meaningful eye contact with me before turning back. He held the tip of the metal rod into the flames, and I felt myself holding my breath. The deep, charcoal color of the poker blossomed into a glowing orange as is heated up, and Damon turned it over in his hands to warm it slowly.

I abruptly found my footing, and scrambled to get myself steady on my feet. I took a shaky step backwards, and then another, moving slowly. Suddenly, Damon turned, and held up the pole in an aggressive stance. I took that as my cue to run, and made a sudden break for it. I hesitated, for barely half a second, but as I took a sharp turn to the right I knew I'd made a mistake. I should have tried to get outside again, but instead I'd gone for the stairs.

Damon sped behind me, shoving me with so much force that I immediately lost my footing, smashing the raw, newly burnt skin on my face into the sharp edge of the wooden steps. The sudden flare of pain almost knocked me unconscious, and I found myself completely unable to get back up.

I felt a pressure against my inner thigh, and a strangled scream tore from my mouth before I could even really comprehend what was happening, the action ripping open the sensitive, peeling skin around my lips. Damon had pressed the tip of the fire poker again my skin, branding me, and he continued to hold it there as I writhed and screeched. When he finally removed it, my throat was raw and stinging from my yells, and I was left panting on the stairs.

For a second I almost thought it was all over, but then Damon took a sudden tight hold on my hips, lifting them roughly off the ground and forcing me to lay there with my backside in the air. I felt the material of his pants on my bare skin as he shifted around me, and I tensed up, considering with a terrified realization that he was probably going to rape me again, just as he said he would. He never even unbuttoned his pants though, and just as I was sure he was going to let go of me, he thrust the molten pole up to the hilt inside of me.

My entire body went into instantaneous shock as the rod ripped through me, and a spout of blood-laced bile immediately sputtered from my throat. I choked on the vomit, but my struggle for breath didn't seem to matter in that moment. Damon held the poker inside of my body, and I felt it cauterizing, burning, breaking the skin around it. Suddenly he tore it back out, shredding my insides, before immediately shoving it back inside. My stomach convulsed again, and the panicked tremors continued throughout the rest of my body. I think I was having some sort of seizure, but I didn't know. I didn't know anything except for the slashing pain rupturing in and out of my body, killing my from the inside, cleaving me into pieces.

"Tell Master how much you love it." I couldn't reply… I was barely registering what he was saying, let alone even attempting to form words of my own. I tried nonetheless, but my garbled whimper caught in my throat and came out as nothing more than an incoherent gag.

"SAY IT, ELENA!" I felt him tear the pole out of me then, following with the sound of my insides splattering out along with it. He was angry at my lack of reply, yelling something at me, but I was way past the point of hearing him. I felt the pole hit me with enough force to shatter my bones, and dully registered the pain. My body convulsed as he continued beating me, and I started to cough up buckets of my own blood and god knows what else. I wasn't able to bend over and let it out of my mouth, so instead it gathered in the back of my throat, and plugged up my nostrils as I sputtered for air. In that moment, I didn't give a shit about surviving. I wanted to die; I just wanted the pain to be over with. So, I welcomed the sudden blanket of unconsciousness like an old friend, and drifted away.

* * *

I jerked awake with a sharp gasp, jolting up so quickly that I almost fell right of the couch. I was once again unscathed, no sign of any physical wounds or scars. They may not have been there for me to feel them, but I still remembered the pain clearly. An absolutely indescribable, intense, white-hot hurt. The kind of agony that made me wish he would get it over with and just kill me. The kind of pain where I would have rather watched Damon kill everyone I'd ever known than go through with it again. My entire body felt prickly at the memories, and was buzzing with a sort of stinging, raw energy.

I immediately doubled over, my body starting to shake with the long, racking sobs I'd been forced to hold in before. I brought my knees up to my chest, and wrapped my arms securely around them so that I made myself into a little ball. I rocked back and forth, trying to pause and inhale between my loud cries. My mind was blank, as there wasn't anything I could possibly think of in that moment that would help. So, I replaced any possible thoughts with crippling howls. Curled up into myself, I could hardly breathe, and my face was soaked with a mixture of big tears and little streams of snot.

Part of me wanted to weep forever, or stay coiled up until I ended up smothering myself against my own skin. When I finally found the strength to lift my head though, Damon sat right across from me. The fire poker was still in his hands, and he was cleaning the gore off of it with a rag. He had replaced his outfit with a clean one, splattered with neither dirt nor blood, and his hair was still damp from a shower. Seemingly noticing my eyes on him, he gazed down to meet my stare with a smug one of his own, and all I could do was look back with wide-eyes.

"Let's try that again, Elena." My arms dropped away from my knees, fell motionless by my sides. My entire body slowly started to freeze up as I put his words together, and I already felt my heart start to pick up its pace into something more manic. "You're going to get down on the fucking ground and beg me to fuck you, or else the same thing will happen all over again."

I felt instantly dizzy, and my vision spun wildly in front of my eyes, black stars flashing in and out of the edges of my sight. He couldn't, he  _couldn't_ … I closed my eyes shut tight, then opened them again. I felt my mouth run dry, and my stomach clench into a nauseated knot.

"So, what do you say, Elena?" My mind knew what I was going to answer before I spoke it, but as the single, shaking word dropped from my lips, I knew I'd made a dire mistake.

"No."

Damon's expression broke into a wicked smile.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys. I’m sorry it took so long to update—I’ve had a lack of inspiration to write. Anyways, I hope you enjoy this chapter. Chapter 14 will be posted up in the next couple days as well. I really hope you guys still like the story. Make sure to leave a review/suggestion. :) Lots of love and thank you for the support~

I woke up to screaming.

The sound shot waves of uncomfortable shivers through my body, and made my stomach tighten to the point of pain. Terrible, blood-curdling wails, filling up the house, filling up my ears. For a few seconds I thought I was still dreaming, having some sort of wicked nightmare, but the sounds were all too real.

I came to slowly, the shine of the full moon outside filling Damon’s bedroom with a beautifully ethereal glow. The sheets fell away from my ever-bare body as I sat up, and I held my hand into a stream of light pooling in from the window. My skin lit up like a shimmering ghost, staining my body a striking white-blue. Torn away by another wail, I drifted from the large bed, my feet gliding lightly over the floorboards. The screams had turned into some sort of erratic sobbing, and the sound made me feel nauseous, as if I were hearing an echo of my own voice whenever Damon laid a hand on me.

Upon exiting the room the hallway was dark, lit only by the bask of the fireplace from the living room down below. I leaned heavily against the banister and peered into the area below, immediately spotting a show of struggling shadows flittering across the room, large pieces of furniture disguising who they truly belonged to.

“Help me!” The voice was shrill, and her words broke halfway into a fit of hyperventilation. I was pulled the rest of the way downstairs by her continuing cries for help, hoping with all I had that it wasn’t another one of Damon’s sick tricks, hoping he wouldn’t hurt me for being curious.

As I rounded the corner, the scene I came across surprised me. Damon held a girl tight to his chest, and she was struggling with all she had, sobbing and howling for some sort of aid or mercy. What shocked me the most though, was that I recognized her.

Aimee Bradley. Not exactly a friend, but definitely an acquaintance—someone I’d spoken to more than a few times at school and at parties. The sight of her familiarity brought a great pain rushing to my throat, and I had to bring up a hand to clamp over my mouth so that I wouldn’t start to cry. Her shirt had been ripped enough to show most of the bra that lay underneath, and I could see mascara smudged down her cheeks through tangles of her disheveled hair.

Her eyes went wide as saucers when she saw me, but I think the sight of my nude body and matted hair only made her start to struggle more, to the point where Damon put her into a choke hold. He held her tight enough so that her face started to turn a ghastly shade of violet, and she slowly lost consciousness. She struggled continuously until her body was completely limp, and Damon then let her fall to the floor in an uncomfortable lump.

I didn’t move from my spot across the room, and waited for my captor himself to saunter over towards me. His expression seemed unusually calm, no hint of snark or smugness, only big blue eyes, so light they were almost silver. He stopped in front of me, gently tipped my chin up until I could look upon his face. I didn’t realize how hard I was shaking until that moment, or how scared I really was. In the past few days, Damon had given me no breaks from his abuse. He’d only let me sleep when I was finally so exhausted that there was no physical way for me to continue my, what he called, ‘training’.

“I got you a present, Elena.” His tone was so soothingly kind that I willed myself to flutter my eyes closed against his words. I felt him stoop down, press his forehead against my own. He bumped his nose against mine, coaxing me back from the dark recesses of my mind and making me look back into his ceaseless stare. For a moment, our eyelashes tangled together, and his warm breath against my cheek made me lean into his body. That small action alone was enough for him to wrap his arms around me. I let his familiar scent wash over me, feeling a strange sense of warming comfort flood down the length of my body. His hands moved slowly up the side of my form, trailing over the bare skin of my stomach, up my spine and back down again, leaving goose bumps behind the wake of his touch.

“Are you going to hurt her?” Though I was truly afraid to speak, I knew my whisper was the only thing I could say to calm my nerves, even if I already knew the answer. Damon hadn’t brought Aimee to the boarding house to treat her nicely, that just wouldn’t make any sense. No, he was going to harm her and torture her just as he’d done to me, until she was begging him to kill her. But he wouldn’t kill her, and I knew that because I’d resorted to the same tactics just the previous day. Right before Damon had finally permitted me to heal and sleep and clean the crusted blood off my skin, I’d groveled at his feet— pleading heavily, begging him to kill me. I’d latched onto his leg and refused to let go until he kicked me off and forced some of his blood down my throat, carried me upstairs and into his bed.

Damon’s composure changed at the sound of my words, apparently agitated that I still hadn’t learned not to speak out of term. His soft fingers on my back turned to sharp nails, and the calm breath against my face became hitched and heavy. He pulled away from the strange embrace we had wrapped ourselves into, and roughly grabbed my face instead, jerking it upwards with such force that I had no other choice but to look at him.

“No, I’m not going to hurt her.” His words sent a surprising jolt of confusion coursing through me, but I knew better than to even let a sliver of hope ignite. Then, as he spoke again, I was more than happy that I hadn’t gotten my hopes up. “But _you_ are.”

I heaved myself away from him with a couple sharp twists of my body, stumbling backwards in a great, wavering huff. I staggered into a nearby wall, steadying myself by pressing my palms flat against the surface of it, and continuing by slowly sliding downwards until I sat crumpled on the floor.

If he really wanted me to injure her, to harm her, there was absolutely nothing I could do. I couldn’t run, I couldn’t come up with some smart words, I couldn’t fight. He’d find a way, any way, to force me into it—I’d learned that much at least.

“Get up!” Damon’s barking order did nothing to me, and I curled tighter into myself, bringing my arms up to shield my face in an anticipation for the punishment I knew was coming. Instead, he stalked across the floor and pulled me to my feet himself. He yanked me by the arm along with him, across the expanse of the room, to where Aimee lay unconscious on the floor. Easing up on his all-too-tight grip, Damon gave me a little push so that I stood closer to her body, the tips of my toes touching her arm.

“Can you pick her up?” I didn’t want to, but at Damon’s question I found myself bending down. I gently looped the girl’s arms around my shoulder, and tried pulling her up with every ounce of strength I had. She was much too heavy, and I was still at the point of being so weak that I could hardly hold myself up, so I fell back down onto my knees.

Most of me expected Damon to lash out for not being strong enough to obey him, but he took me by surprise by leaning over my form and scooping Aimee into his arms instead, as if she weighed absolutely nothing. He adjusted her limp body, supporting her with one arm behind her knees and the other around her shoulders, her neck lolling limply.

“Where do you want her?” Still on my knees, I craned a look over one shoulder at the sound of Damon’s voice once again piping up. I gawked at him as if he hadn’t spoken English, confused as to why he was even asking the question in the first place. Since when did I get to call the shots?

“Elena.” His tone darkened, along with the whites of his eyes, becoming threatening and impatient. I panicked in response, and looked wildly around the room, my eyes landing finally on the familiar couch near the ever-burning fireplace. I quickly raised a hand, pointing towards it.

In a few swift movements, Damon had the girl dumped uncaringly onto the sofa and retreated against a far wall, leaning heavily on it and crossing his arms over his chest. Perhaps against my better judgement, I stood, and instinctively started towards my captor. Before I could even get halfway there, he froze me with a small, nearly unnoticeable shake of his head, before dipping his chin back in Aimee’s direction. I turned back towards her, caught in the middle of the room.

Testing the waters, I took a small step back to the blazing hearth, then gazed back at Damon, seeking some sort of approval or right-away. A tight smirk graced his lips at my pause, and he once again angled his head back towards the comatose girl, still splayed silently across the couch cushions.

After I made my way back, I found myself once again looking down upon her. Though we weren’t exactly close friends, and I hardly knew anything about her, I’d gone to school with Aimee since kindergarten, and the sight of her all broken and wilted made me feel sick. Her familiarity alone set off alarms in my body, warning me of a flood of grief that threatened to escape. I used to see her hanging out with Tyler a lot, and she always had another girl by her side, whose name was Sarah if I remembered correctly. I swallowed a thick lump in my throat, and reached down to try and get her mess of hair clear of her face. However, just as my fingertips brushed against her skin, she let out a shrieking gasp of breath, and burst into a sitting position so suddenly that it sent me lurching backwards with a scream of my own.

I landed painfully on the coffee table behind me, feeling the wood collide against the back of my knees. I staggered to get to my feet, watching as Aimee sat panting with her hands curled into tight fists. She looked wild, her eyes wider than I thought would be physically possible, surrounded by a smudging ring of smoky makeup, and her torn shirt slipping farther down her shoulders.

Immediately, her crazed stare landed on me, her face wide open with an array of flashing emotions. Fear, confusion, hysteria, embarrassment, some sort of relief. She only had eyes for me, not seeming to notice the grinning form of Damon in the back of the room, who was covering up a low chuckle with the back of his hand.

“E-elena, you have to h-help me.” Her voice shook wildly to the point where I could barely understand her. “This man, h-he… I don’t even know how he got in my room and he j-just—” Her words fractured off into a heaving sob, and she doubled over into herself, wrapping her arms over her bare shoulders, trying to salvage what was left of her ripped blouse.

“I can make her stop crying, if you want.” Damon’s sentence resonated through the room, and though he was speaking to me it was Aimee who reacted to his words. She instantly tumbled from the couch, staggering to catch her footing. She whipped her head around wildly in search of the voice’s owner, and upon finally spotting him she made an immediate break for the door.

Damon sped towards the girl before she could barely take a step, and she let out a piercing scream of panic when he twisted her arms in a tight hold behind her back. She kept howling, screeching at me to help her, to do something, but all I did was stand there, my head starting to throb with the beginning of a headache.

“Do you want me to compel her?” Damon asked the question again in a surprisingly level-headed voice, and all I could manage was a feeble nod, the sound of Aimee’s struggles only making me feel worse and worse about the whole situation. He spun her around in his grip, stooping down so that their faces were level with each other. I watched in a sort of mild awe as Damon stared directly into her eyes and told her to shut up, Aimee obeying instantly.

We stood in silence for what seemed like much too long. Aimee had fallen quiet, but she was nonetheless twisting and writhing wildly in her captor’s arms, a thick stream of tears still pouring down her cheeks. She had successfully struggled enough so that her ruined shirt had slipped clean off her body, and Damon held her in no more than a lace bra and a pair of tiny jean shorts.

“What’re you going to do, Elena?” Damon finally broke the silence, and I willed myself to bring my gaze up to catch against his own. His blue eyes bore into me as they narrowed, and yet another smirk playing at his mouth when he suddenly gave Aimee a great shove towards me. She fell back, struggling to keep her balance, yet ending up knocking into me with some force. The moment moved quickly, and I tried my best to get a grip on her arm, or around her waist, but she was all flailing legs and punching arms. She managed to get a good hit, smacking me square in the jaw and sending me falling back a second time into the coffee table as she once again tried to run past Damon and into the hall.

Once I’d regained my balance, Aimee was already recaptured. I closed my eyes against the scene, because it was just too painful to watch. Some useless game of cat and mouse. I could hear Damon approaching, and felt Aimee’s continuous thrashing as the duo came up beside me.

“Do you want her to keep struggling?” I squeezed my eyes tighter and tighter to his question, closing them so hard that the blackness of my eyelids became ripples of grey static. I felt numb, and my head shook from side to side on its own accord, before my mind could even process what I was really doing. I heard Damon then tell her to stop fighting, demand her to stop crying, insist that she can’t try to run anymore.

And suddenly, before I’d even heard him move closer, he was at my ear whispering, and I could do nothing but try and pull myself deeper into my closed eyelids, and wrap my arms around myself in a hug.

“You want to hurt her.” _No._ “I know you want to hurt her.” _You know nothing._ “You’re just like me, Elena.” _I’m nothing like you…_ “You’re hurting, and you want to take it out on someone, don’t you?” _No, no…_ “So take it out on her.” My mind was at a battle with his words, and an accidental whimper left my lips, making me feel weak enough to enable my arms to coil tighter around my torso. My knees buckled, and I fell against the man at my side.

“Don’t make me…” My soft begging did nothing, and the support Damon was providing disappeared as he walked away, forcing me to open my eyes and catch myself before I fell to the ground. As I recovered, he pushed Aimee into my arms, and I was required to look at her.

The sight of her made me feel physically ill. I could barely stand, and I leaned my palms heavily against either of her shoulders, using them as an anchor to keep me from crumpling to the ground. It was one thing for Damon to terrorize me, but to hurt someone else, someone innocent… She looked so scared, and so small. She couldn’t cry, she couldn’t run, she couldn’t make a sound, but she was shaking wildly, and the shattered expression that befell her features was worse than any sort of weeping or screaming she could ever make. For the entirety of my stay, I hadn’t willed myself to look in a mirror, but at that moment Aimee was like my reflection.

I shoved her away from me in a sudden rush of disgust, and ordered her loudly to sit down. My push had been too forceful however, and she tripped over her own two feet, falling backwards and hitting the ground hard, her arm echoing out the obvious sound of it breaking at the impact. Suddenly I was crying as well, tasting the salt of my tears before I even became aware of the crackling sobs that ripped through my throat. I spun away, refusing to help the girl get up, yet all the while hating myself for what I just did.

Damon’s palm collided with the side of my face, the slap lurching me instantly out of my fit, and back into a state of fear and panic. I tried to duck away from him, but he was too fast. His hand shot out again, backhanding the same cheek, and I let out a strangled grunt as the force of the hit tossed me to the side. I landed limply on the sofa, Damon standing over me before I could even process that I needed to get up.

“Hurt her!” He lashed out another blow, cuffed my chin so hard that my entire jawed screamed in pain. “Take it out on her, Elena!”

I managed to sit up, duck under Damon’s arm before he could manage another slap, but Aimee was right there and I stumbled against her. She was trying to hide behind me, obviously scared for her own safety, but she was making it hard to maneuver around. Damon’s hand felt as painful as a whip as he lashed against my face once again, and I staggered harder into the girl behind me. The feeling of her small body, trembling as hard as ever, upset me more than I imagined it possibly could, and I felt something snap inside me.

“SIT DOWN!” The severity of my voice surprised me a great deal, as I hardly thought I had the energy to whisper, let alone scream an order. I whipped around to face Aimee, Damon’s violent actions temporarily ceasing as the both of us watched her scamper around me to take a seat on the couch. She sat, gaping at me, cradling her broken arm close to her body.

I was breathing hard, my chest heaving up and down in effort, my cheeks burning with an angered heat. And then I crumbled, burying my head in my hands, my shoulders hunching over in defeat.

Damon wouldn’t let up though, and he was back at his pestering within a second. He gave me a little push, enough for me to raise my head, then turned it into a great shove, followed by a painful strike across my shoulder blades. He was yelling constantly, hitting me and ramming me forward to the point where I was pressed against the front of the couch, forced to stare down at Aimee.

“Hurt her! Do it! Let it out! _DO IT!_ ” Each of Damon’s booming commands, each of his agonizing slaps against my skin, ignited a flame in the pit of my stomach. The fire grew, blazing smoke and embers that floated up my throat, burned my lips into a snarl. The sight of the girl in front of me only made my anger grow. There she sat, curled around herself, sulking in her own pain. She was pathetic, she was weak—just like me.

_Do something, Aimee!_ I wanted to scream the words at her, but they got all tangled and gnarled in my throat. _Help!_ But she did nothing, and I soon felt her own trembling resonate in my body, though I didn’t shake from fear. My vision was exploding with little white fireworks, and I thought I might pass out from the dizzying pressure that built up in my head. I’d never been so angry, so furious, in my entire life. The sad, feeble girl on the sofa, it _was_ like looking in a mirror. She was a perfect portrait of the useless, submissive thing Damon had started to paint me into. She was a living, breathing copy of everything I hated about myself. In that moment I wanted her gone, gone, gone.

I felt Damon press something into the palm of my hand. A warm, smooth stick of metal. Long, rusted, still stained with colors of my own gore. I weighed the fire poker in my hand, let my eyes rest upon it. In that instant I felt strong, stronger than I’d felt in weeks. I let the power flow up the tips of my fingers, through the length of my arms, over my torso, let it course through the veins of my neck and pour down my legs.

“You’re nothing, Elena.” I couldn’t tell if it was Damon speaking, or my own mind. They were the same voice, resonating the same words. I clutched the weapon tighter in my grasp, holding it forcefully enough so that my knuckles flushed stark-white, and my muscles shook with effort. “You’re pathetic.”

I cracked, broke, shattered so strongly that I seized the pole above my head before bringing it down with an extraordinary battle cry. The poker made impact with soft flesh, and the shock of the blow echoed all the way up my arms. Aimee didn’t scream, didn’t even try to struggle, but that only aggravated me further. I was blind with rage. All I could see was myself on that sofa, and all I wanted to do was kill her. Stupid, worthless, obedient, bitch.

I shot the pole down again, and again, and again. Then it started to feel good, started to relieve the red-hot fury bursting like a million stars inside of me. I put more force into the blows, crying out every time the metal rod collided with skin and bone. I felt a splatter of hot liquid on my face, tasted salty copper as it sprayed into my open mouth. Suddenly I was the one screaming, because the bloodied figure in front of me still couldn’t. I hit her again and again, over and over and over until I felt sweat running down my face and I was so exhausted that I had no choice but to involuntarily drop to my knees. The fire poker fell from my hands, and it was so slick with red gore that I could hardly tell what it even was. I fell forward with a violent lurch, my head hitting the edge of the sofa cushions as my stomach heaved. My body convulsed once, twice, as it tried to vomit, but nothing came out save for a small string of saliva, and I was left there as a trembling, wheezing mess.

Damon was suddenly kneeling behind me, and I jumped at the feel of his hands dropping against my bare shoulders. I felt the front of his body pressing into my back, and he leaned in to rest his head against the side of my neck so that his lips were close to my ear.

“See, Elena? You’re just like me.” I felt as if I was going to faint. “Look at what you just fucking did.”

He took a sharp hold of my chin, jerking my head up so that I was forced to stare at the indistinguishable mound of crushed bones and gore in front of me.

“Good girl.”


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! I’m so happy you all still like the story. :) I don’t want to give anything away, but I swear things will start to get better for poor Elena. Thank you so much for all your suggestions/nice comments, and be sure to keep leaving them! This chapter is a bit short though, so apologies! The next one will be action-packed, I promise!  
> I hope you enjoy either way ;)  
> (Also, a note about Elena getting her period, since that was suggested a while ago as well as recently: usually if someone is in a high-stress situation and/or deprived of nutrition they’ll stop having their period, so that’s why I haven’t really fit it into the story. Just a heads up ^^)

“Come here.” It was difficult to walk, not because of any physical injuries, but because it had been a little over a week since the last time Damon fed me. I was dizzy, and weak, but nonetheless, I picked my way across the room without hesitation. Though I knew exactly what was going to happen when I reached his relaxed form, draped lazily across the sheets of his bed, I was too tired to fight anymore. Someone can have all the resistance and rebellion and fight in the world, but the truth is that there is only so much hurt one person can take. Disobeying him would only lead to more pain, and god knows I didn’t need more of that.

Torture is draining – emotionally and physically and in ways I never even thought were possible. God, I tried so hard to stay strong, and I lasted on and off for a good couple of weeks, but then I slowly but surely started to shatter. Little pieces of me broke off, and the shards disappeared someplace where I knew I’d never be able to get them back. Experiencing myself starting to fall away—the pain of that was almost worse than the things Damon did to be. Like literal acid in my veins, corroding everything from my heart to my lungs to any grounding thoughts in my head.

I arrived at the edge of the mattress, leaning heavily against it as I was at the point of barely being able to hold myself up. I was so weary, and wanted nothing more than to sleep, but when Damon asked for something my needs were no longer a concern. He reached out for me, and I hoisted myself up onto the sheets, crawled across the expanse of bed until I was settled in his arms.

I was losing myself, in every possible sense. I could feel anything and everything about me start to ebb away, fade into a blurry hue where I couldn’t discern my real memories or thoughts or feelings from ones Damon was forcing upon me. Sometimes he terrified me, and sometimes I would feel a flush of some sick kind of adoration for him, some sort of disgusting sympathy. I wanted to please him, I wanted so badly to hear the words ‘ _good girl_ ’ slither from his lips and wrap themselves around my ears. Because if I was good, that meant he wouldn’t hurt me—that meant that he might even reward me.

My legs were folded on either side of his body, straddling him, and he gazed up at me through heavy-lidded eyes, his mouth curved into a soft, lusting smirk. He ran his fingertips up the length of my bare body, then back down again. His touch left little trails of fire across my skin, and I leaned into it, letting my eyes close, willing my body to relax. I told myself that I wanted his attention, because I didn’t have any other choice other than to accept it.

Some days were spent crying and screaming at myself inside my head, howling silently at the people that could’ve saved me, but didn’t. _Stefan, where are you? Why’d you leave me? Stefan, help me…_ But after a while I started to wonder exactly what he would be saving me from. Damon was sick, he needed help, but I could give it to him. If I obeyed him it made him happy; it made _me_ happy, or at least that’s what I told myself.

“You want me to fuck you, hmm?” His voice was a deep, seductive purr. I was exhausted, but if Damon wanted to have his way with me then I had to believe it was for the best. Over the weeks, it had almost stopped hurting. If I moved along with his body, if I tried to just relax and imagine some sort of pleasure instead of tensing at nothing other than the pain, then it didn’t feel so bad. I’d convinced myself to think that the more I let Damon have sex with me, the more likely he might be to turn his emotions back on. Maybe if he was sure that I cared for him enough to let him do whatever he wanted to me, he wouldn’t be so rough.

_Captor-bonding… Stockholm syndrome…_ Earlier on those words had resurfaced from god-knows-where in my thoughts, floated about in what was left of my fears. I didn’t want a broken mind, I didn’t want a broken body, but isn’t that what was occurring? Some sort of fucked-up psychological damage that came with severe abuse. So much violence and manipulation and dominance, emotionally and physically, that I developed some sort of twisted feelings of compassion and pity towards the person evoking them on me. It was scary to think that something like that was happening to me, and I didn’t want to believe it. I’d comfort myself by curling into Damon’s arms, convince myself that he wasn’t the bad guy when he’d stroke my hair, or when he’d hit me just gentle enough so that I wouldn’t bleed.

Either way, I nodded at his words, and let the gentle reply of _Yes, Master_ slip from my mouth. Any other answer wouldn’t have mattered, or would have resulted in some sort of punishment. I parted my lips to gasp as I felt Damon’s muscles tense underneath me, but the sound was lost in my throat when he suddenly flipped us over, knocking the breath from my lungs as he pinned me to the bed. His eyes were wide open then, staring into my own. Without breaking sight of me, he wrapped a hand tight against my throat and plowed me forwards until my skull was pressed against the hard wood of the headboard.

It hurt, but I tried to see past the pain, even as he ripped my legs apart from each other and settled his hips eagerly between them. My jaw was slack, and when Damon squeezed viciously at my neck I heard a moan escape my lips. Even though I could barely breathe, I could tell he was being gentle. Damon wasn’t angry at me, he was just playing, so he couldn’t mean any real harm. He was already hard, and I could feel him pressed up against my entrance. His nails dug themselves into the side of my throat, and a burst of tingles fractured down the length of my body.

“Please, Master.” Before I’d barely gotten the words out he was inside of me. With each thrust he got increasingly rougher, more and more violent, until my head was bashing repeatedly against the headboard, and a splay of black spots exploded across my eyes. I was breathing hard, and my hands scrambled to press against the sheet of wood behind me, trying to lean away from having my skull rammed into it. It had barely been half a minute, and I already felt the slickness of blood between my thighs, accompanied by the telltale sting that became more apparent each time Damon buried himself inside me.

A couple more weeks of that turned into a couple more months, and the thread holding who I was before everything drew more and more thin until it snapped completely and left the broken ends all split and withered, shaping me into the pathetic, submissive little thing I’d become. Who was I anymore? Elena was just a name, but nothing about it felt right, and I wasn’t sure if it ever would again. I had a closet full of skeletons, I had a past, and a file somewhere full of memories of the people I once cared so much about, but none of that mattered. Nothing mattered anymore except for Damon.

Damon was my master, Damon was my everything. He owned me, he made me, he shaped me into… into whoever I’d become. I didn’t know if I wanted to, but I felt so fucking grateful towards him. I loved him, I loved him more than I’d ever loved anything. The feeling was wild, feral, something of pure instinct, if that was even possible. Whenever I saw him, my body cringed away but fell into him at the same time. I was left with broken, aching bones, and a hunger so strong that only he could ever fill. _Love me back, love me back._ I spent every ounce of everything I had trying to please him, but it started to take more and more and more for him to tell me how much of a good girl I was, how happy he was with me, up until the point where I’d hardly ever hear it at all.  

Suddenly, the need to stand up for myself became non-existent. Stepping out of line wasn’t even an option that crossed my mind. I had no intentions to disobey Damon—my poor, sweet, righteous Damon. I wasn’t the broken one, he was. I deserved everything he did to me; every drop of blood spilt was on my hands, of my doing. He instigated the hurting, but I was always the one to hand him the knife. But no, I wasn’t broken, it was all him. He was ruined, emotionless, filled up to the brim with anger and hatred and guilt to the point where he burst and turned it all off instead. I started to believe he’d brought me there, not as some kind of toy or instrument of revenge, but as a cry for help. He needed my help, he needed me as some sort of solid pillar that wouldn’t lash out against him, or betray him. He needed me to fix him. Some nights I could see it in the pits of his eyes, when for a tiny fraction of a second they wouldn’t look so flat and dead, I could see it when he’d gather me in his arms, and tip my head back to feed me water, or even when he’d heal me as I choked out through mouthfuls of my own blood and gore.

_Damon, Damon, Damon…_ It was such a beautiful name, and was constantly rolling around my mind. Even if I wasn’t allowed to say it out loud, I felt it silently turning over my tongue again and again until it didn’t even sound like a word anymore, just a jumble of thick letters that didn’t make any sort of sense.

_Master_. I used that name instead when addressing him, because he told me to and I had no more reasons to go against what he’d said.

I’d managed to adjust myself nicely into the new lifestyle. All I had to do was obey Damon, and he repaid me by keeping me safe, and sheltered. He’d feed me just enough to keep me alive, and let me have just enough freedom so that I wouldn’t go insane. A simple life, but a life nonetheless. A beautifully plain routine of submission.

I let myself get immersed in it. I had once again let myself drown-- except this time it wasn’t in water.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There was actually more to this chapter at the end, but it was seriously a bit too gross (even for me) so I cut it off early. Sorry guys hehe. Also, apologies that this chapter just kind of sucks... I wrote it in the very early hours of the morning after having not slept for a few days. I swear the next chapter will be better. May or may not involve a delena road trip ;)  
> Thank you for all the support though, you are all perfect. Much love~  
> Hope you enjoy nonetheless! :)

My eyes shot open in panic, and I felt my breath catch in the back of my throat. A thick sheen of sweat was draped across my forehead, the only reminder remaining from the nightmare I’d awoken from. The room was so dark that I couldn’t make out the ceiling, or barely even the shapes of the surrounding furniture as I sat up to look around. The warmth of Damon’s body was missing from the bed, and I briefly wondered if his absence was what woke me. Something else was wrong though. The room was colder than usual, and I was shivering even from under the thick duvet. I blinked rapidly, trying the best I could to adjust my eyes to the thick shadows pressing around me, and swallowed a dry lump in my throat. I had gotten used to Damon’s continuous presence in my life, and could tell when he was around, but something felt off about the apparently empty room.

I slunk out from under the covers, stretching my toes forward until they touched the smooth wood floor. I tested my weight against the cool hardwood, and shakily tipped myself into a standing position. The sudden, far-away sound of something breaking made me freeze in my tracks, and I felt a hot shiver zip all the way up my spine, settling into an uncomfortable buzz at the base of my skull. I heard another crash from downstairs, and something like a muffled cry of pain. A burst of wind hit my skin, and made me wheel around, realizing that the room’s change of temperature was to blame on an open window. But Damon never opened the windows, especially not in the middle of the night.

The scenario brought me all the way back to the night of my kidnapping. I remembered waking up in my old bedroom, drowning in the fear that someone was watching me. When I’d finally gotten the courage to move, Damon himself had emerged from the shadows. The rest of that scene was a blurry mess in my head, of being tossed at walls, feeling my wrist break, watching in dull horror as he cracked my family’s skulls against the doorframe. The memory made me scared to move from my spot in the middle of my captor’s bedroom, and I felt my entire body stiffen. I kept my eyes locked on the window, fearing to see someone try and climb inside, and dreading the grim thought that someone already had. Then, out of absolutely no where, something clamped around my mouth.

It was a hand, softer and a bit smaller than Damon’s, with a more gentle grip. All the same, the action made me scream as best I could into the flesh, and try desperately to bite down into it. I kicked, and flailed my arms, but I very quickly found my limbs restrained, being held against a body. I could feel breath against my ear, fast and shaky as if they hadn’t been expecting me to put up such a fight. The figure was shushing me, and the tone sounded distantly familiar, but I didn’t realize who it was until they spoke.

“Hey, hey it’s okay. It’s me.” Stefan’s voice was soft and so quiet I could have almost thought I’d imagined it, but it was there all the same. Then, suddenly the whole situation just became so obvious and I wondered how I didn’t immediately recognize it to be him. The feel of his body behind me, the smell of his cologne, even the tone of his breathing was so recognizable. The familiarity of it all felt heavy, and so overwhelming that I felt as if I were sinking. I ceased my struggling, not because I wanted to, but because I didn’t know what else to do. I was having trouble breathing, and my concentration had been wrenched into the past. I remembered kissing him, having dinner at my house with him and Bonnie and Jenna, but all those memories were outweighed by another. The only thing that really stood out what the thought of him sitting in the corner of his cell as Damon had his way with me, and the thought of him avoiding my gaze as he walked right past me and out the front door. He’d abandoned me, right at the time I’d thought I’d needed him the most. Though I supposed that didn’t even matter anymore.

He spun me around in his arms, and my sight had finally adjusted enough so that I could make out his features. Every part of him sparked up a sort of pain within me. Green eyes, olive skin, wavy hair, compassionate expression... I wanted to cover my eyes, rip myself away from ever looking at him again. He had left me, and Damon had taken his place. Damon had been there for me when Stefan wasn’t, Damon had fixed me, so how _dare_ he come back after all that time.

“Be quiet, okay? We’re getting you out of here.” His words were so terribly quiet, that I barely saw his mouth move when he spoke. Slowly, but surely, he loosened his palm from my lips, and slid it away to sit on my shoulder instead. My heart was beating fast, and the sound of rushing blood was deafening in my ears, but Stefan didn’t seem to recognize my fear. I was scared though, frozen in place. Too terrified to scream or struggle anymore. If Damon walked into the room at that moment, I could only imagine what he’d do to me. He would probably think I’d called Stefan to come rescue me. The trust I was so sure we’d built together would be completely shattered, and I didn’t even want to start thinking about what my punishment would entail.

He let go of me for a second and swooped back towards the bed, lifting a stray blanket from the mattress. I stayed frozen as he draped the quilt over my shoulders, and felt my eyes burn holes in the floor as he tucked the rest of it securely under my arms. It was only when Stefan took me in his arms, and started to carry me towards the open window, that my trance was shattered.

A scream tore from my throat, so loud and sudden that it took Stefan completely by surprise. He nearly dropped me in his bewilderment, but I refused to let up. I started up again with the kicking, and managed to keep his hand away long enough to let Damon’s name erupt from my lips.

“Help! Damo—” Then suddenly my mouth was covered again, and I could feel the complete panic in Stefan’s actions as he sped forward to try and get me out the window. I dug my nails into the edge of the sill, gripping on so hard that it felt as if my fingers were going to rip off the rest of my hand. I felt hot tears sting my eyes, and burst down my cheeks, falling over Stefan’s hand that remained tight around my jaw. Just when I thought I wouldn’t be able to hold on any longer, Stefan’s efforts to get me out the window abruptly ceased. A shocked expression was splayed across his features, and his eyes were wide with some sort of stunned terror. Cautiously, I followed his surprised line of vision across the room to see what had caught him off guard, and felt my breath catch jaggedly in my throat when I saw what did.

The unmistakable silhouette of Damon stood in the doorway, lit up only by the terribly faint glow of the window. As he approached us, the sight of him got clearer, and I wasn’t sure whether to be scared of him or grateful that he was there. His face was drawn into a tight scowl, and his eyes were dark and surrounded with wavering veins. Two razor-sharp fangs poked out from around his lips, and a thick stream of blood stained his chin. Gazing downwards, I realized his arms were covered in blood and gore all the way up to the elbow, and large splatters of the stuff discolored his shirt into a deep red. He held something in his hand, but I couldn’t make out what it was from around his fingers.

Stefan had stepped down from the windowsill, but one of his arms still held me tight against him, while the other lay ceaselessly around my mouth. I was trying to make eye contact with Damon, and continued to struggle enough to let him know that I didn’t want his brother to take me away. The blood-stained boy’s attention lay completely on Stefan however, and once he’d gotten closer to us he let the object drop from his grip. The thing fell to the floor with a deep splat, and rolled forward a couple of inches to rest at the tip of Stefan’s shoes. At first, it was completely indistinguishable, but I finally recognized what it was. A heart.

“Lexi may’ve been older than me, brother, but I’m still smarter.” Stefan was trembling against me, and I felt his grip start to falter. Looking over my shoulder, I watched as his tough expression shattered into one of defeat, his brows pulling together and creating a deep crease on his forehead. For a second, I thought he was actually going to start crying and fall to his knees, but he managed to recover as quickly as he’d broken down. He took a step back towards the window, once again holding me tight against his chest, gripping handfuls of the blanket wrapped around me in a tight fist. Lexi... I hadn’t heard either of the brothers mention that name before, but she had to have been the cause of the commotion I’d heard earlier.

“I thought you might come back for Elena, but why _now_?” Damon had taken up a comfortable stance, leaning lazily against one of his bedposts and crossing his gore-covered arms over his chest. “I mean, it’s been over 5 months, Stefan. Or did you lose track of time partying it up with your blonde sidekick?”

Over five months. I felt a jolt of dull shock sway through my body as the information sunk in. In all honesty I was stunned; it hadn’t felt like I’d been there that long. That meant it had to be early March by then, at least. School was more than halfway over. Part of me, way in the back of my mind, wondered how I’d survived that long, and why it had taken me so long to just give in, and another even smaller part felt terribly betrayed at how long it had taken Stefan to come back. Over five months ago he’d walked out the front door of the boarding house, scotch free, and he’d just now come back for me. It hurt to know I wasn’t a priority, and only made me struggle harder in his arms.

“You killed her.” Stefan’s own voice was numb, emotionless, not a question but a statement. The words seemed to ground him, and he held onto me harder, his nails digging so hard into my skin that it brought on little waves of pain.

“That wench had it coming— It was me or her, brother. Now give back my girl before you mess up your hero hair.” Stefan was holding me so hard that his nails cut into my skin, and I could feel blood against my cheek and running down the side of my arm. The smell of it must have caught his attention, because he ceased his stare-off with Damon to turn his attention back down to me.

“Oh god...” Stefan let out a groan as his breathing hitched, his eyes glued to the weak stream of blood spreading like little rivers down the side of my face. I watched as the whites of his eyes deepened into a dark shade of red, and felt myself start to panic when two of his teeth grew pointed and long. He seemed to be battling some inner conflict, and managed to finally tear himself away from the sight of me, letting me out of his grip. I didn’t think twice about it and immediately bolted off, scrambling wildly as the blanket fell from my body and sprinting across the room to Damon.

I crashed into his chest, and locked my arms tight around him in an embrace, heaving frightened sobs. I tried to speak, but my words were all thick and jumbled and came out as nothing more than hysteric apologies. My face was buried in the crook of his neck, and the panicked tears that left my eyes rested there against his skin.

I felt Damon lean up off the bed post, caressing one arm around the small of my back and letting the other one sift gently through my hair. Though he wasn’t the one who had been trying to drag me out the window, he held me tighter than Stefan had, and I could already feel little finger-shaped bruises rise up from where he touched my skin. He crooned soft words into my ear, and gently shushed my feeble begging and insisting, focusing his attention instead back up to his brother.

“You compelled her.” Stefan’s voice was shaky, as he struggled to regain his composure, but the words he spat were full of disgust.

“I didn’t, but what difference would that make? She’s mine either way. And now Lexi’s dead because you’ve decided to come save someone that doesn’t want saving.” I finally let myself curl away from Damon’s neck and turn around in his embrace, letting him shift his arms into a gently folded position across my bare stomach. I leaned back into his body, and he responded by holding me up and bending forward into mine.

Stefan watched the scene unfold, and he managed to catch my eyes, his own filled with confusion. He took a moment to search my face, look over my features as if to make sure Damon hadn’t actually hypnotized me into obedience.

“There’s nothing left for you here, brother.” Damon kept his words steady, and he spoke them against the top of my head, rustling my hair with his breath.

“What is this? You love her now, is that it?” Probably against his will, Stefan’s voice shook, and his eyes kept scanning over me, continuously catching on the thin streaks of rapidly drying blood that speckled my body.

“Stefan,” I could feel Damon’s wild smirk through my hair, and his tone sounded as if he were holding back laughter. “I feel absolutely _nothing_.”

“You can’t do this.”

“Oh, believe me brother, I can. And until either A) you’re able to deal with that, or B) you can do something about it, I suggest you get the hell out of my face, and my girl’s.”

Stefan became quite still, and his eyebrows drew together in a crumpled expression. I suppressed a shudder as I felt Damon’s hands run up the length of my body and come to a rest at the apex on my throat. He lifted my chin with his fingers, giving him more room to get a tight grip on my neck. Though his touch was rough, I could tell that he wasn’t actually intending to hurt me. It was simply nothing more than a non-verbal threat, directed across the room to his brooding brother. He knew Stefan would break if he made a move to intentionally hurt me. Then, suddenly, Stefan’s motionless form fluttered with movement. He took a single step backwards, towards the ever-open window, paused briefly, and then took another. In an abrupt blur, he was gone, disappeared the rest of the way out the window without another word.

I hadn’t wanted Stefan to take me, but at the same time there was a part of me that felt overly betrayed at his lack of loyalty. He’d given up so easily—left me there without a fight, or any kind of struggle. His whole rescue plan had been half-hearted at best, and just the fact that it took him over five months to come back to get me made me feel as if he hadn’t wanted to at all.

In that moment, I decided to close the chapter that Stefan took up in my life. I didn’t want much to do with him anymore in the first place, but the good memories were still there, as brief as they seemed, and I needed to forget them. Depending on people from the past to save me was unreliable, especially if I was so sure that I didn’t need saving anyways.

 My eyes wandered from the sight of the fluttering blinds and empty windowsill, and I found myself once again staring at the heart. It rested against the floorboards, shining with slick blood in the shards of moonlight that managed to tear into the room. As Damon let go of me I heard him start to walk back out of the room, his footsteps heavy, but he paused when I began to speak.

“Why didn’t you kill him too?” I turned around to meet his gaze as the words left my mouth, expecting him to be angry. Instead, he shrugged and continued out of the room. I followed quickly at his heels, stepping in time behind him.

“With Lexi out of the picture, there’s only one other bitch Stefan will go crawling back to. AKA, things are going exactly as planned.” Damon picked his way down the staircase, and I was quick to go after him. My footsteps started to falter though as we made our way into the living room, and I noticed thick splatters of blood streaked across the floor, staining the rugs littered throughout the room. I considered going straight back upstairs to the safety of our bedroom, even if there was a human organ there, but then I saw the body.

The sight of who I guessed to be Lexi both nauseated and intrigued me at the same time. Since I’d been staying with Damon I’d seen my fair share of dead bodies, but her’s was different. Her skin had darkened into a sort of smoky grey, and murky veins had risen to the surface of her body, making her look at if she’d been dead for weeks instead of just a few minutes. Her hair was tangled, covering most of her face, and her shirt was partially torn, revealing bloody gouges down the length of her neck and across her collarbone. Her legs were splayed limply, as if she’s fallen, and there was an all-too-apparent hole in the middle of her chest where her heart had been ripped clean out.

“This is your fault, you know.” I tore my eyes away from the body at the sound of Damon’s voice, and turned around in time to see him approach me. “I was having a relaxing night, and now it’s ruined.”

“I’m sorry, Mas—”

“Shush, Elena.” I was taken aback. Usually he made me grovel at his feet for him to accept an apology,  made me get down on my knees and beg until I felt even more pathetic than I had in the first place.

“Kiss her.” His line of vision was unmistakably directed towards the gruesome corpse littered beside us, and I threw a quick look over my shoulder to make sure I wasn’t wrong.

“What?” I’d heard him perfectly, of course, and I understood his words, but they’d taken me by surprise nonetheless.

“Are you questioning me, sweetheart?”

“N-no, I, I—”

“She tried to rescue you, Elena. Have a little gratitude. Go on, kiss her.” I could hear his trademark smirk thick in his words, and it sounded as if he were about to start laughing.

I circled back around to Lexi’s body, and cautiously went to stand over her. I could feel Damon’s eyes on me like a hawk, and I wondered how bad the alternative punishment could really be if I decided to disobey him. I lowered myself down onto my knees, felt my stomach tighten. It didn’t matter what I wanted, I had to obey Damon—it was really the only choice. Just a kiss couldn’t be so bad, could it?

Drawing forward a hand, I brushed away Lexi’s hair from her face and let it fall in a sort of golden halo spread out around her head. Despite the fact that her body looked as if it had been mauled by a bear, she looked beautiful, like she were merely sleeping. I slid my hand down the side of her face, and rested my fingers lightly against her cool lips, swiping across their soft surface to clear it of blood. I leaned down slowly so that my hair tumbled around us like a curtain, trapping me close to the dead vampire’s face. It scared me to be in such close contact with a corpse, and every inch of me was screaming to veer away and refuse. The fact that she was a girl didn’t matter, and why would it, but kissing a dead body covered in blood and grey veins, missing her heart—it was so wrong.

I closed my eyes so that I wouldn’t have to watch, and leaned down to meet her skin. I thought it would be bad, but it was worse than that. I was met with cold lips, still stained with a stretch of ever-warm blood, and the combination made me pull up immediately.

 “Come on Elena, I know you can do better than that.” At that, Damon really did start laughing; a low chuckle from behind me that sent a shiver straight through the core of my body. He had gotten closer than I thought, and I felt his hands fall against my shoulders as he crouched down against my back. “And you _are_ going to do better than that.”


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys!! I wish I had a good excuse as to why it took me so long to update, but honestly the only reason I have is that I’ve started too many new t.v shows. Orange is the New Black, Graceland, American Horror Story, Girls, Pretty Little Liars season 5 started, not to mention I’m rewatching TVD…. I AM SO SORRY.  
> I hope you can all enjoy part 1 of this road trip, and part 2 will be out soon, I swear! Thank you guys for sticking with me. Much love~

A pile of clothing hit me square in the face, blacking out my vision before I could catch a glimpse of the man I knew had thrown them.

“Get dressed. We’re going on a little road trip.” By the time I’d finally managed to pull the material from my eyes, Damon had already disappeared from the doorway, leaving me once again alone in his big room. I sat with my knees pulled tight to my chest, and my mouth slightly ajar—I was stunned to say the least. Before that moment, my captor had never so much as mentioned the idea of me leaving the boarding house, let alone giving me clothes to wear and saying he was taking me on a _road trip_. Should I have been excited, frightened? Was he giving me an award for being obedient, or punishing me for reasons I was sure he’d make known in the near future? Either way, a big part of me was more than happy at the opportunity. I missed the sunshine, and the breeze. I missed seeing the sky.

I leapt from the bed with more energy than my body could handle, and stumbled in an attempt to steady myself before I fell and added yet another unneeded bruise to my already heavily-battered skin. My fingers dug into one of the bed posts, and I slowly slid my palms up its length until I was properly straightened up, panting from the effort. My vision exploded with shaky static, and it looked as if everything around me was doubled and swimming in circles so I closed my eyes. It was pathetic that I couldn’t even stand up without getting tired out, but it was a reality I’d been forced to adapt to.

 _I can do this, it’ll be okay._ My little surge of excitement had vanished, and the only words that continued to roll through my mind were words of support, encouraging me to stand up without any aid, to take deep, grounding breaths. Whenever I’d get that weak my body shifted into a sort of robotic auto-pilot. No emotions, no proper thoughts—just the instinct of survival guiding me and reminding me how to walk without falling and how to breathe without choking up. Slowly, I felt the feeling return to my fingertips, and the nausea in the pit of my stomach subsided to a dull enough pang. I cracked open my eyelids before widening them fully, keeping my eyes to the ground so that my vision wasn’t immediately overwhelmed with the details of the room.

Looking down, I could see the length of my body from my chest to my toes, and though the sight had become awfully familiar it still sometimes frightened me. I didn’t look fully human anymore, or at least I didn’t think so. I was emaciated, so terribly skinny that my legs were nearly thinner than my arms, and my skin was loose in some places. My bones pressed so tightly against my skin that it looked as if they could cut right out. I looked rigid and sharp, in the most terrifying way, yet at the same time so sad and so, so tiny. My stomach looked like a concave pit, and I could count each and every one of my ribs. My chest was almost past the point of being flat, my breasts even smaller than they had been before I’d hit puberty. Then there were the scars—so many so close together that it looked as if my entire body was textured and bumpy and dark. I was just glad that I had enough self control to not look in the mirror every time Damon let me into the bathroom. It was bad enough to see my body in its grotesque state, but if I was forced to see my face like that as well, I wasn’t sure if I would be able to handle it. I could still run my fingers over it, or use my imagination, and that was more than enough proof that it was all sunken and scarred and skeletal like the rest of me. I didn’t need accompanying visual proof to go with it.

Slowly moving my line of sight upwards, I let my eyes catch against the almost-forgotten pile of clothes that rested against the bed sheets. I reached forward and grabbed a pair of jeans from the pile, holding them at arms length. Of all the outfits I ever expected Damon to give me, something as conservative as jeans never made the list. I definitely wasn’t complaining though—despite it being summer, and the temperature climbing quite high, I was in a constant state of cold shivers.

I rummaged back through the pile, finding a pair of red, lace panties. They weighed nothing in my hand, and were quite pretty, but I felt something along the lines of anxiety as I examined them. Then, it hit me—they were familiar. I let them drop from my fingers, landing lightly on the floorboards below, and I frantically turned back to the rest of the clothing. I could feel my heart beating hard in my chest, and I was once again having trouble breathing. I held up the deep burgundy shirt with shaking hands, looked back at the jeans, tried to avoid seeing the knit cardigan all together. The clothes… they were all mine.

I thought the memories had long stopped plaguing me, but they all came rushing back at once, the force of the flashing images knocking me clean off my feet and back into the mattress behind me. A cool night at my family’s lake house—though mom and Jeremy were inside I’d insisted to go out to sit on the dock, and my dad had soon joined me. He’d made his presence known by wrapping my favorite grey cardigan around my shoulders in an attempt to stop my shivering, then he’d sat down beside me and watched the waves roll lazily in the slight breeze at my side. Years later, in a mall—Caroline pulling me into Victoria’s Secret and insisting that I spice up my life with some newer, sexier undergarments. She’d even paid for them—a lacy red bra and panty set that I would have been more than a little embarrassed to buy on my own. Then there was Bonnie—who’d gained a couple pounds and outgrown her favorite pair of skinny jeans, but didn’t have the heart to just get rid of them, so she’d insisted I wear them instead. And lastly the shirt—an unexpected birthday present from Jeremy, who usually just made me a card. An entire wardrobe of memories suddenly making me wish I had the courage to stay naked and face Damon’s consequences.     

But I didn’t have any courage, not after everything that happened, so I rolled over instead and gathered the soft material of the shirt in my hands, stretching it and pulling it over my head. I had no need for the bra, that much I knew for sure. It would be much too big, and fit my body awkwardly. The shirt, on the other hand, felt nice against my skin. The feeling was definitely weird and foreign, as I hadn’t so much as touched an article of clothing for months, but I enjoyed the way it brushed at my sides and hid my boney arms all the same. I got back up off the bed more carefully this time, and bent down to retrieve the pretty pair of underwear I’d left abandoned on the floor. I inched them slowly up my legs, letting them settle at the top of my thighs against my hips. I remembered before everything when they’d fit me perfectly, hugged the curve of my backside in a way that made me want to wear them every single day. Now they barely stayed on my lithe figure when I stood, baggy against the absence of my body’s shape. In an attempt to make myself feel better, I pulled the jeans on overtop.

The denim slid much too easily up my legs since the pants were originally tight-fitting and a bit of a battle to get on, and once I had them pulled all the way up I wished desperately that Damon had thought to give me a belt. Then suddenly, as if he’d up and read my mind, I heard a noise behind me and turned around to find him watching me, leaned lazily up against the doorframe with something like a humored smile on his face.

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m usually all for that baggy Bohemian look, but you look like you’re drowning in those clothes.” He laughed at his own joke, and started across the room towards me, adjusting a half-full backpack that lay slumped against his shoulders. He motioned towards the bed, so I thankfully sat back down, my feeble weight barely permitting me to sink down into the mattress.

Damon arrived at my side, letting the bag slip from his shoulders and fall beside me on the bed. He stooped over me, rummaging through the backpack’s contents before finally retrieving a pretty baby doll dress I recognized to once again be my own.

“Off with the pants, c’mon.” He waited and watched as I stripped back down, tapping his foot impatiently until I once again sat in nothing but a pair of panties. Hooking an arm around the small of my back, he stood me up like a doll. I raised my arms over my head as guided the length of the lacy dress down my body, and it fell gently just below my thighs. Though the white shroud of material didn’t fit perfectly, it definitely fared better than my previous outfit.

Damon dug back into the bag of what seemed to be my things, taking out a pair of simple shoes. He let them fall loudly to the floorboard in front of me before starting back out of the room.

“We’re leaving. Come.” I slid the flats on as quickly as I could, and managed to snatch up my old sweater before scampering after him. Together, we descended the stairs in silence, though I was forced to guide myself down with the help of the banister.

Once we arrived at the front door, I immediately realized how sick I felt. I didn’t know if this was just another one of Damon’s tests or not. I wanted to trust him, because he told me I had to, but I was terrified all the same. He threw open the door, and a sudden gust of wind made me glue myself to his side, link my arms tight around one of his own. I thought for sure that he’d shake me off, but luckily for me he didn’t seem to mind the gesture and led us out onto the front porch.

Damon hadn’t let me outside since the day, all those months ago, I tried to escape. Back then it was late fall, and the air was frigid, but now everything smelt like flowers and fresh grass and the sun beat down brightly from the center of the sky. I closed my eyes against the summer weather, letting Damon guide me blindly down the driveway as I basked in its warmth. When I opened them again we were at the end of the property, and his car was pulled over on the side of the road, all ready to go.

  The top was down, and Damon didn’t bother with the door, hoping over the car frame and into the driver’s seat. He patted the spot beside him, and I made my way around the old Camaro, opening the passenger door and getting in.

Damon started the car as I struggled to get my seatbelt on, and took off down the road, the radio blaring. The wind was loud in my ears, and blew my hair into a crazy-tangled mess around my head.

“New Jersey. We’re going to a little bar there.” He spoke loudly over the music, and though I turned to gaze at him he seemed displeased at my lack of true response.

“Go on, Elena, ask me why we’re driving all this way. You’re just dying to know, I can see it.” Actually I knew better than to bother myself with things such as curiosity anymore because Damon hardly ever let me ask any questions, but I didn’t dare tell him that.

“Why then?” My voice crackled from lack of use, and the sound of it made me want to curl deep inside myself and hide away. I couldn’t completely remember the last time I’d said a word out loud. At least a couple days, give or take, that was for sure. 

Damon drummed his hands loudly on the steering wheel, and at first the action made me jump as I thought he was angry. I quickly realized it was a cheerful movement though, and forced myself to relax as she started to speak.

“I’ve _finally_ got a lead, Elena, that’s why.” He was smiling. It was crooked, and almost a downright evil grin, but I could sense joy underneath his malice, and I was pretty sure that frightened me even more.   


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m so sorry, guys! I have no excuses other than the fact that I haven’t been inspired to write. I will tell you now though: I NEVER abandon a piece of writing, EVER. So even if it takes me 1 week, 3 weeks, 2 months to write one chapter, you have to know that I will finish this fanfic, so no worries!  
> Much, much love to everyone who’s stayed with the story for this long! :)

I leaned back into the leather seat of the car and closed my eyes. The wind whipping through my hair, which made me realize just how fast we were actually going, made me feel equally alive. The sun was warm against the back of my eyelids, something I hadn’t felt for much too long. I could feel the bass from the radio in the center of my chest, vibrating through my skin, creating rows up goosebumps up and down the length of my arms. I recognized the song playing, and felt a rush of happiness at its familiarity instead of the crippling sadness I’d been expecting. I wanted so badly to sing along to it, but instead I just willed my lips to part in a smile, and I could feel Damon watching me from his place at the steering wheel. I turned towards him slightly, cracked open my eyes to let his relaxed form appear once more in my field of vision.

                He didn’t look upset, or angry, like I was sure he’d be. Instead he was openly curious. Slowly, as cautiously as I could, I slouched closer to him, letting my head drop down against his shoulder. My heart sped up when I initially felt him tense underneath me, and for a second I regretted the decision. Then suddenly, he was all relaxed again and I once more felt at ease. He shifted underneath me, lifting an arm, and I perked up for a moment to meet his gaze.

                “Come here.” His voice was softer than usual, though his words were still more of an order than anything else. He looped his free hand around me to undo my seatbelt, and I picked my way across the seat to him. I settled myself in his lap, facing him, and leaned into his chest. Damon rested his lips on the top of my head, and I felt him smile through my hair.

                I must have fallen asleep, for when I sat up again the sun had already set, and Damon was pulling into the parking lot of some sort of bar. There were a few other cars alongside us, and the place was bustling with a combination of lights, noise, and the silhouettes of other people. Their shapes made me stiffen, and grip tight to the material of Damon’s shirt. Saying I was scared to see other people wouldn’t be the right words—I was more nervous or… overwhelmed.

                “Good, you’re awake.” Damon settled into a parking spot, and took the keys from the ignition before swinging open the door. “Out.”

                I got down from off his lap, swinging my legs over him before sliding down until my feet hit the gravel of the ground. My legs were cramped up from the way I’d been sitting for so long, and my neck was sore, but I barely felt any of it—that kind of pain I could ignore.

                The night air was much cooler than it had been when the sun was still out, and I looped my cardigan tighter around my arms to prevent myself from shivering. I turned back towards the car, waiting faithfully as Damon got out, attempting to straighten out his now-wrinkled shirt. He closed the car door, stuffing the keys into one of his back pockets before striding past me towards the illuminated building without a second glance.

                I padded quickly after him, stumbling clumsily over a larger stray rock when I looked back over my shoulder at the car. I managed to regain my footing before I made it to the ground however, and used the rest of my energy to sprint to Damon’s side, just in time for us to enter the establishment together.

                As we pushed through a rickety-looking door, a few heads turned. Mostly, the glances were out of curiosity, and some lingered a little longer than necessary to roam up and down the slight form of my body. I looked back up to Damon to make sure he hadn’t seen the way a particularly smug group of men had stared at me, but his full attention was on a taller lady behind the counter of the bar, who was waving to him.

                As he made his way over to her, the slight crowd parted for him, and I tried my best to stay close on his tail as to avoid being swallowed up in a mound of unfamiliar faces. I swung a glance over to the corner of the room and saw, to my dismay, that the group of men who’d sized me up were gradually weaving their way in our direction. In a fit of fear, I reached out to grab Damon’s arm, but he shrugged me off as he kicked someone off a bar stool to claim it as his own, and took a seat. He scooted as close as he could to the counter, leaning in to the bartender who’d called him over.

                “This better be good— I drove almost seven hours. Where are they?” Those words were the only part of his conversation I managed to pick up on before their phrases became something more like whispers, and I was forced to stand awkwardly behind Damon, wishing for the stool beside him to be empty so that I could sit safely at his side.

                After a good moment of unsuccessfully trying to win back Damon’s attention, I turned away in defeat to truly take in the scene around me. In a way, the place reminded me of the grill, though it was much livelier and there weren’t any booths, only scattered sets of small tables and chairs. People were dancing, chatting, laughing, all with bottles of beer or some other type of drink in their hands. I looked over to the pool table, and a sudden stray thought made me wrap my thin arms tight around my middle. What if there was someone here that would recognize me? After I’d gone missing back home, they would have put out missing posters, there would have been nation-wide searches, right? But then again what were the chances that some random person in a run-down New Jersey bar would know me? Slim to none, I was guessing. I didn’t know why I was even thinking about that in the first place, as I knew what would happen if someone tried to take me away—Damon would just kill them, or compel them, maybe both. I didn’t even want to be taken away in the first place, at least I was pretty sure I didn’t. I loved Damon, didn’t I?

                “Hey.” The greeting seemed too close for the person it came from to be talking to anyone else but me, so I turned towards the sound of the voice. It was one of the men from the bigger group, but the smile he offered me was less hostile and more inviting. “You don’t look like you’re having fun—come dance with us.”

                Damon hadn’t said what I should do if someone tried talking to me—actually he hadn’t told me what to do in case of _anything_ , but all the same it didn’t feel right to respond to the man. I belonged to Damon and Damon alone, so how would I be allowed to speak to someone else? It wasn’t right.

                “I can buy you a drink too, what do you like?” The man grabbed hold of my hand and I jumped, trying to pull away with a sort of panicked jerk-of-the-hand. He didn’t let go though, if anything he tightened his grip. I wanted to make Damon aware somehow of what was happening, but anything I wanted to say had turned into a crumpled ball of air in the back of my throat, practically choking me, and any further actions I wanted to take had been paralyzed by fear. The man clearly couldn’t see how uncomfortable I was, or if he did he very obviously didn’t care. He looped a hand around my waist, less gentle this time, and started to pull me back towards his group of friends.

                We were barely halfway through the crowd before someone grabbed me from behind, ripping me away from the other man’s hold. Damon spun me around in his arms, his eyes practically on fire. His whole expression frightened me more than I could explain, and I felt a bout of tears threaten to run out from behind my eyes. I dully felt the other guy trying to pull me back towards him, possessively, but Damon was having none of that. Without barely taking his eyes off of me, he reached out and snapped the man’s neck, letting him fall to the floor with a loud slump.

                A couple people around us gasped, or turned to see what had happened, but for the most part they all seemed to think that he had passed out drunk, or that Damon had knocked him unconscious. I knew he wouldn’t ever be waking up, though.

               “What the _fuck_ do you think you’re doing?” Damon’s hand came out of nowhere, and struck me hard on the cheek. My whole head cracked to the side, and I gasped loudly, my own palms shooting up to cradle my reddening face.

                “I-I couldn’t—he just grabbed—”

                “Did I say you could just go off with some random guy?” He interrupted me before I had the chance to properly explain, grabbing my arm and starting to pull me painfully back towards the door.

                “You didn’t say I couldn’t.” As soon as the words passed my lips, I knew it had been a terribly wrong answer. I hadn’t meant it, of course, but the snarky phrase had slipped out before I could even think to stop myself. Damon stopped dead in his tracks though, and his direct beeline towards the exit did a sudden 180 and he started towards the back of the bar instead, seemingly towards the bathrooms.

                “Oh, you wanna be a slut now, huh?”

“No, no… I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” My small protests seemed meaningless as he dragged me through the doors of the men’s bathroom, tackling me viciously into one of the small stalls and locking the door with a sharp click behind us.

                “I didn’t mean it..” I found myself to be crying, suddenly, and my whole body was shaking as I attempted to push back on his chest. He hadn’t scared me this much in so long that I’d nearly forgotten what it felt like to want to get away from him.

                He slammed me forcefully into the wall, pressing my face painfully into the tiles, and bringing another hand over my front to cover up my mouth.

                “You’re going to shut up and take what you deserve like a good girl, understand?” His words rung out right at my ear, low and dark and dangerous. I had no choice but to attempt and nod my head through his vice grip. If I struggled and cried and pitied myself, everything would only hurt more and his punishment might be even worse. There were only cons to resisting, so I had to just give in.

                I stopped struggling immediately, but that didn’t stop Damon’s actions from being any less rough. He ripped up the back of my dress, pushing hard on my back to bend me over a little. I balled my hand into fists and rested them on either side of the wall beside my head to ease up on the pressure against my cheek, and forced myself to close my eyes. I felt a sharp sting against my skin as Damon clean tore off my underwear, throwing them off to the side.

                He was inside of me before I could even get the chance to prepare myself for it, and I accidentally let out a pained scream from around his hand. At the sound, he immediately became more violent, pounding into me until I swore I was going to pass out. Numbly, I thought I heard someone enter the bathroom, use the toilet, leave without caring what was happening in one of the stalls beside him.

                When Damon finished, he detached himself from me with a sharp shove. My legs were shaking, and I’d lost all feeling in my feet, so my knees buckled from underneath me and I fell crumpled to the ground, painfully hitting my chin against the rim of the toilet on the way down. I definitely felt blood running down my thighs, and I could barely breathe. I reached out weakly to wrap my arms around one of Damon’s legs, trying to suppress a heaving sob. He kicked me off of him quite quickly, obviously still very angry, and hauled me to my feet instead. He unlocked the stall, and tried pulling me out, but when he realized that I physically didn’t have it in me to walk, he swung me over one shoulder instead so that I lay half-slumped over his back.

                He carried me out of the bathroom, and pushed through a back exit beside it instead of going all the way through the crowd to reach the front door. I hung limply against him as he brought me back around to the front of the bar, a tense sort of silence following along with us.

                Once arriving at the car, Damon dumped me at my spot in the passenger seat before weaving around to the back and swinging open the trunk. I stayed curled around myself, trying to tug down the dress lower to cover myself, as he pulled out the retractable roof from the trunk and brought it over my head, blocking out the night sky above. After he’d locked it in place, instead of going around to the driver’s side of the car, he returned to me. He threw open the door with such fury that it made me jump, and I winced when he dragged me back out. My knees hit the gravel painfully, but this time Damon didn’t bother to pick me up. Without waiting for me to attempt standing, he dragged me back around the car.

                My brain slowly started piecing things together, and I felt notes of racing panic starting to jump back up in the pit of my stomach. I thought my punishment was over, I thought he’d gotten all his frustration out. Instead, he hoisted me off the ground, and threw my body carelessly into the trunk of his car. I landed painfully on my arm, and immediately started to struggle up. The car ride was seven hours long, he _couldn’t_. Before I had a chance to properly struggle though, before I could even get out a word of protest, he slammed the trunk down and locked it, leaving me in total darkness.


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey again guys! Long time, no update! I was travelling practically the entire month of August without my laptop, so I was unable to write. And since I’ve been back home I’ve been quite busy (and have any free time distracted by Netflix). But here it is! Finally! An update! I hope you guys enjoy. My goal is to finish this fic before season 6 starts, so stay tuned. :)

I don’t think I fell asleep. It was hard to tell, as the darkness in the trunk was almost as suffocating as the absence of fresh air. I don’t remember dreaming though, or fading off into a blank unconsciousness. Just seven hours, give or take, of bumpy roads and sudden stops, accompanied with a constant nausea that made me use all my remaining energy to hope I wouldn’t throw up in the small space I was contained in. Then suddenly, just as the feeling of being jerked around in a tight space started to seem like a constant familiar, the car came to a stop and the engine cut off. Just like that it was over.

When Damon threw open the trunk, the weak streams of early-morning light were blinding in comparison to the shadowed compartment I’d been stuffed in. I curled tighter around myself; buried my head in my knees and wrapped my arms across my disheveled hair. Nails dug painfully into my skin as I was violently hoisted from the trunk, and I was forced to retract from the fetal position I’d just spent hours curled into. My feet were wobbly, and it was only the feeling of dirt in between my toes that make me realize my shoes were gone. I imaged they’d been discarded haphazardly in that dirty bathroom alongside my underwear, and I knew I’d probably never see them again.

I found myself gripping handfuls of fabric in front of me, and squinted my eyes open just enough to realize I was clinging to Damon’s shirt, leaning like a deadweight against his chest. I looked up, slowly, until my line of vision reached his face, but reverted my sight back down to the ground much faster. He still looked angry. He hadn’t been upset with me like that in weeks, I’d started to think that nothing could ever go wrong again—I thought we were perfect. That thought alone made a sliver of sadness shine through my ever-present terror, and I let my eyes once more close, blocking out the too-bright light and the fuming figure I was leaning against. _I’m sorry._ I wanted to say. _I’m sorry and I love you. I love you…_ But the words never managed to find their way off my tongue.

He dragged me across the lawn without giving me another second to regain my footing, and I was scrambling wildly in his grip by the time we’d finally reached the front door. Though I’d only been away less than 24 hours, it felt like much longer than that. A strong feeling came flooding back through me, and made me even weaker in the knees than I already was. Nostalgia or familiarity definitely weren’t the right words to describe the feeling. It was more like a looming dread.

“Just when I thought I could trust you, you go and act up first chance you get.” He shoved me through the doorway once it was unlocked, and I fell clumsily against a wall, having nearly tripped and plummeted all the way to the dark, wood floors. He was back at me in a second though, and gave me a carelessly-sharp shove forward.

"I went extremely out of my way to come back here and drop you off, Elena. I could be halfway to Chicago already if you hadn’t been so kind to prove that you are no longer suited to handle yourself in public.” He shot a foot out to kick the back of my leg, and I made a feeble attempt to dodge him and race ahead. By that point I was blubbering, muttering incomprehensible things and shaking so hard that I was surprised I could still walk. Damon reached me in no time, taking a sharp hold of my arm and dragging me the rest of the way to the basement door.

He guided me roughly down the steep stairs, holding me tight enough so that I couldn’t trip, but once we’d arrived at the cells, he threw me inside without a second glance.

The shock of the cement hitting my knees was more than enough to wake me up from any remaining daze I had from my prolonged ride in the trunk. I’d caught myself with my palms, but most of the weight had still gone to my legs, leaving me with sharp zings of pain shooting through them, feeling as if both my boney kneecaps had shattered upon impact. My head was bowed low enough so that my hair fell like a raggedy curtain around my skull, masking the pained expression that shadowed my features. I let a loud sob rack my body, powerful enough so that my arms gave out as well and I fell into a crumpled heap against Damon’s shoes.

Damon grabbed a handful of hair from the back of my head, and I was pulled back up onto my knees in an instant. I stared straight ahead, this time too cowardly to look up and meet his eyes, so instead resting my gaze upon the leather belt and the way his shirt was still tucked neatly into the rim of his pants.

“Apologize, Elena.” Low, dark, demanding—it seemed to be the only toned he would use with me at the time, so my reply was instantaneous and nearly robotic.

“I’m sorry, Mas—”

“ _Elena,_ ” He cut me off before I could even properly address him. “Apologize like the _slut_ you are.”

I knew what he really wanted me to do then, and I tried to push away the ebb of unwillingness that threatened to break through the sturdy wall that’d been built up in my mind. If I obeyed, everything would be alright, but if I resisted the punishment would just get worse. I knew that, but I found the words to be frantically repeating themselves in my mind.

It hurt to stay on my knees, and my hands shook wildly as I lifted them to the zipper on Damon’s pants, but I tried to make my mind go blank and focus on the task. I unbuckled his belt, undid his button and his fly. I pushed his pants down off of his hips, letting my hands trail softly against his legs as I guided the material down to around his ankles. I did the same with his boxers, sliding them off, and then I leaned in to leave a soft trail of kisses against his inner thigh, working my way up until my face was inches away from his already erect member.

I took the base of it in my palms, guiding my lips down around the head as Damon had taught me. I toyed with him for a minute, steering my tongue across the tip before I bobbed my head forward and took his length into my throat. I didn’t choke, but shaky breaths still sputtered from my nose and my eyes still started to water. I moved one hand away from his shaft to run up and down his leg, massaging small circles as it went, while the other continued its work on his length, granting me a moan from Damon as he leaned back to grip the wall.

I didn’t enjoy that type of apologizing, despite the amount of times Damon had told me I should. His pleasure should bring me pleasure, he’d said, but despite my efforts his words rung untrue. When I had to give him head I simply went into more of an autopilot state. My thoughts blank, my eyes glazed over, but my mouth and my hands working away until my master met his release.

“Fuck—” After a few minutes Damon let out a breathy groan of a word, and his hips instinctively bucked into me. I curled my free hand into a fist in an attempt not to gag as his seed shot down my throat, but I managed to still swallow diligently as I finally was able to pull away.

“Good girl.” His words sounded rugged and slightly slurred as he pushed me away and went to securing his pants back around his waist. I could feel him looking down at me, and I stayed in my slight position against the dirty stone tiles of the basement, waiting for some sort of further instruction.

“Got anything to say?”

“I’m sorry, Master.”

“Anything else.”

“I-I’m s-sorry. I love you.” He bent down and seized my chin in his grasp, tugging it upwards to meet his icy glare.

“Say it again.”

“I love you, Master.”

He squeezed my face hard in his palm, to the point of a sort of stinging pain, before, satisfied at last, letting go and moving to pace around the room instead. The sharp tap of his shoes against the floor sent shivers piercing through my spine, and quite a big part of me wanted to try and make a break for it back upstairs. I hated the basement, and if he was going to punish me further I would’ve rather it been upstairs in his room, or at the very least on the main floor. Anywhere but the damp, windowless cubicle he’d forced me into too many times before.

“At first you were sort of fun, but now you’re getting to be a bit of a nuisance.” His voice came from directly behind me, and I flinched when he reached around under my arms in an attempt to haul me to my feet. “I’m not going to go to through the trouble of compelling you a babysitter, so this is the best it’s going to get.”

The sudden jangle of metal caught me off guard, and offhandedly piqued my attention. Throwing a timid glance over my shoulder, I followed the line of Damon’s hand as he reached up behind me to retrieve a thick chain that hung from the ceiling. He forced my hands above my head, and secured a pair of handcuffs attached to the end of the chain tight to my wrists. I was stunned, too scared to even move. He was just going to leave me chained in the room while he took a little detour to Chicago? But how long would he leave me there—hours? _Days!?_

Just when I thought it couldn’t possibly get any worse than it already was, Damon made a beeline to the back wall and started fumbling with some sort of contraption. Immediately, the chains tightened, pulling my body upwards to that I was practically dangling by my wrists, the tips of my toes barely scraping the concrete I suddenly so yearned to sit back down on.

The pain in my shoulders was instant, feeling as if it were supporting so much more than just the measly weight my emaciated body could count for. The sting shot up and down the length of my arms, blossoming further at the base of my wrists where the metal handcuffs were already digging viscously into my skin. I’d barely been strung up like that for a minute and the pain was already starting to be too much.

“Damon…” My voice was soft little squeak, the final plea I could muster up. He couldn’t leave me there, he wouldn’t. But then again he had thrown me into that trunk for several hours. And he’d tortured me constantly until it didn’t even feel like torture anymore. He’d killed my family and everyone I’d ever known—so I suppose that it barely made sense for him to suddenly take pity on me.

As he passed by, I strained my body in his direction, pointing my toes to regain my balance with so much effort that my feet cramped up almost at once. He didn’t even bat an eye in my direction though until he was positioned in the hall outside of my cell, one hand leaning loftily against the half-open door.

“Be back in a week, tops. Hang in there.” He paused for a moment to laugh at his own witty comment before closing the door completely and leaving me once again in a hum of pitch darkness.

I heard Damon’s footsteps travel back up the stairs, loud and deliberate as if he purposely wanted me to listen to them. They traveled directly overhead of me, on the floor above, and then I heard the front door slam shut as if to finalize things.

For a moment, I was enveloped in something close to silence—the only real sound being my uneven, ever-escalating breaths. Then, slowly, the severity of Damon’s last words to me started to sink in. _Be back in a week, tops._ There was absolutely no doubt in my mind; if he left me in the state I was in for an entire week, I would be past the point of being dead. Three days was even really starting to push it, wasn’t it? He was already starving me out, but to be strung up like I was for days without even so much as water..? My breath hitched in my throat, and I felt a spell of dizziness overcome me, sparkling little lights flashing across my vision in some sort of panicked adrenaline rush.

“Damon! _DAMON!_ ” His name ripped from my throat in first a steadied yell, but soon pitched into a frenzied scream. I called for him, over and over, hoping with everything I had that he hadn’t actually left me there. I shouted for him until my throat had gone all raw and scratchy, and it was overly difficult to get out much more than a hoarse whisper. How long had it been already? At least a few hours? I’d already lost feeling in most of my upper body, save for my wrists where the pain had sloped up into something close to an unbearable agony.

All alone, and left in blackness, I could feel how hungry I was, I could feel a stinging thirst in the back of my throat begging for even a single drop of water. I felt searing, white-hot pain through-out my entire body, as if the feeling of everything Damon had ever done to me was suddenly flaring back up. I couldn’t scream anymore, and my jaw was slack. I had begun to get excruciatingly tired, but it was impossible to fall asleep dangled up on my toes. More time passed. How long, I wasn’t sure. It could’ve been minutes, or perhaps even months, for all the sense I was still able to conjure up and apply to the cold, shadowed environment around me.

Terrifyingly too soon, I lost all sensation in my hands, and I was left with the steady drip of blood falling from my rubbed-raw wrists and unto my matted locks. It wasn’t too long after that though, that the impenetrable dark of the room actually seemed to be glowing a bright, brilliant grey. It buzzed in the corner of my eyes at first, but it had taken full control of my vision before I could even properly identify it.

Out of the strange mist came shapes. Some familiar, some less so. Sometimes they came in pairs, or alone, or in big groups so that the cell was all crowded up. I recognized Stefan, and the soft faces of my parents. Then there was a waitress at the grill, but also Bonnie. And then Vicki, and Mayor Lockwood. And Jeremy, and Caroline, and many kids from my school I swore I’d never spoken a word to. I think I tried calling out for them, but at that point I couldn’t be certain. No one ever answered. They stayed put around me, just watching. The brilliant grey made them all look too-bright and over-saturated, and all I wanted to do was reach out to them, or have them reach out to me. But they lingered like statues, and haunted me in a way that continuously tore up and rebuilt the wall Damon had helped construct in my mind. Damon was all I needed, but I missed these people so much, missed my old life. I was supposed to love Damon, but I hated him. _Hated him_. And I didn’t want him to touch me, but I knew he had to touch me… the war raged on and on, and the ghosts of the people I all so desperately wanted to see in person watched on in emotionless silence.

Then, finally, my captor himself appeared among the figures. The fuzzy grey burst into a different color. Something too bright for me to handle, but I couldn’t close my eyes against it, and I didn’t have any limbs to shield my face away. Damon was approaching me, in ways that the other figures hadn’t, he came closer, and closer still, until finally I felt something moving, felt something break, and I was falling forward into his arms, suddenly engulfed by a velvet blackness all over again.


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GAAH sorry! I said I’d have this done for the season 6 premiere, but I was unable to. There are just a few chapters left though, so stay tuned. Once again, just thank you guys so much for all the nice comments and support. It really means a lot to me! I hope you enjoy the chapter. ;) P.S- how are you all liking season 6 so far? I love it for the most part. :)

My mouth tasted absolutely fowl. Like vomit, and a sort of tangy copper. I could feel a mix of the two things crusted around my lips, and an uncomfortably bloated sensation arising from my stomach. In a sudden, unstoppable bout of nausea, my body jerked forward before I could stop it, and my eyes snapped open as I threw up. The liquid that sputtered from my throat tasted too bland and cold to be stomach acid, so I assumed it to be water. I kept my head bowed as I tried to recover from the fit, panting wildly as the puddle of spit-up streamed past me and into a small drain embedded in the dirty, stone floor.

“I gave you too much…” At the sound of a soft, reserved-sounding voice, I raised my head, following it up a body that stood opposite of me and feeling nothing other than surprise when my eyes locked on Damon’s face. He wasn’t leaning against the wall in his regular stance, but standing on his own rather awkwardly and clutching a half-empty water bottle in from of him. His signature leather jacket was half-off, sunken below his shoulders, and the shirt he wore was splattered with dried blood and ripped as if he’d been attacked by some sort of wild animal.

There was something wrong with his expression, his posture, the weird glint in his eyes. Though my vision was loopy, fading in and out of a sort of blinding blurriness, I could tell that he was trembling. I couldn’t tell whether it was out of anger, fear, or something else entirely, but his face gave nothing away other than the fact that something was definitely off. I pushed myself into a more upright position with my palms, realizing that there was no longer any pain radiating from my wrists, just more dried blood where the cutting wounds used to be.

I tried to approach him, crawling slowly, but he retreated in sync with my own movements right back out of the cell and into the hallway. I fell still once more, and felt a rush of guilt. Was he still angry with me? His actions were confusing at best, though I suppose he’d always been hard to read.

“Drink it slowly.” Before I had time to prepare myself, Damon tossed the water bottle at me, probably in hopes that I’d reach out and catch it. Instead, I instinctively ducked as it flew at me, flinching as it hit my arm and fell the rest of the way to the floor in front of me. I looked back up, but he’d already disappeared from the doorway and out of sight, leaving it wide open.

I picked up the bottle and got a feel for it in the palm of my hand before unscrewing the lid and taking the tiniest of sips. It felt strange to swallow the water, almost painful even, but I forced myself to take another small sip, and then another and another, until I’d make a dent in the contents of the bottle.

Only but a few moments later, a sharp pain lit up in my stomach, so surprisingly excruciating that I fell over, a wheezing gasp surfacing from my lips. I curled my toes, trying to distract myself from the painful cramps, but then I coughed and most of the water I’d just swallowed came sputtering right back up. Groaning, I closed my eyes, and let the liquid flow down the side of my face and wet my entanglement of what I called hair.

Was I dying? I thought I’d been dead, that was for sure. With Damon having abandoned me in the cell so I had no one to save me-- that was the closest brush I’d had with death for a long time. I really thought I was gone for a moment; familiar faces around me, weird flashing grey-blackness, no feeling in my body, an absence of any logical thoughts… But then, he appeared at seemingly the last possible second, and saved me. Maybe he had come too late though. Maybe there was no use saving me anymore.

I let the water bottle fall from my fingers, let the rest of it spill out and flow away unneeded. My eyes traced their path back up to the open door, and the hallway beyond. Did Damon mean for me to follow him upstairs?

I made an effort to stand, but I simply couldn’t. Though I didn’t really feel any specific pain in my legs to stop me, my entire body was just too tired, and I didn’t have nearly enough strength to support my small form. Plus, the stinging cramps blossoming throughout my insides didn’t make it any easier, as they forced me to keep a sort of doubled-over stance, clutching at my stomach to try and ease some of the pain.

Determined still, I decided I’d have a better chance of moving if I stayed on my hands and knees, proceeding to crawl my way across the damp stone floor instead. As I made my way out of the cell and towards the stairs, I could hear Damon’s footsteps above me, more loud and frustrated than the silent sneaking I was used to.

On the second or third stair I had to stop and rest. All I wanted to do was get back to Damon and figure out what was going on, but I was physically unable to go any further. I let my head fall against the stone steps, and closed my eyes to the bright spots that exploded across my vision, simultaneously trying to ignore the screaming bouts of pain in my stomach. I had managed to get through worse than this, many times over, so why was I so weary?

I took a deep enough breath so that it stung my lungs, and held it as I forced myself to push on. Though I practically had to drag myself up the last few stairs, I made it, just in time to hear a frustrated yell erupt from my captor.

 “Fuck, fuck, FUCK!” By the pattern of his footsteps, it sounded as if he were pacing, and when I managed to round the corner I found that to be true. He didn’t seem to notice me, and shot his hand out across a nearby end-table, shattering the contents on it and sending shards of a vase flying across the room.

It was weird to see him like that—furious and out of control. Sure, he got angry or upset a lot, but he always managed to keep his cool. He’d take his frustration out on me, and stay calm and collected in the process. It had always been about dominance and manipulation, about showing how all I was to him was a toy. But he seemed different somehow. Even with his back turned to me I could see his chest heaving for breath, I could see how his whole body trembled with something that could only be described as raw emotion.

Concentrating only on getting to him I climbed my way back to my feet, using the wall as support. My walk was staggered and weak, but I managed to get a few steps across the room before I fell against his back. It was intended to be a hug, but instead I tumbled down against him more for support than anything, and wrapped my arms around him to keep me from falling back down to the floor.

Having most definitely taken Damon off guard, he shoved me away from himself quite violently, and shot a slap across my face hard enough to send me smacking back into a wall. His actions left me in a sort of stunned silence, and I let myself slide down the rest of the way to the ground, gripping my throbbing cheek in my hands and trying not to let my face betray how much I wanted to break down and cry.

I was scared to meet his eyes, but I could see him standing over me, shaking. His body was rigid, muscles all tensed up, and I feared that he was so angry that he’d just kill me right then and there. When I finally willed myself to look upon his face however, his eyebrows were pulled tight in a sort of worried, panicked expression. He bit into his wrist suddenly, ripped open a wound wide enough so that it wouldn’t heal too soon, and bent down in front of me. He forced the cut up to my lips, holding it there violently enough so that it was almost painful until I parted my lips and drank from it.

After a moment or two my vision cleared up, and the overall hum of pain jolting through my body dimmed. The blood rested warm and comforting in the pit of my stomach, and didn’t bring on the nausea I feared it would.

“Thank you, Master.” Though Damon’s unstable mood both confused and frightened me, I thought it would be best to thank him nonetheless. He usually never healed me with his blood unless I was right on the brink of death, so it was an odd turnaround of events.

“Don’t call me that!” Before I’d barely finished my words, he snapped a few choice ones of his own, and his hand shot out once more, catching against my cheek and cracking my head to the side. I immediately leaned back into the wall, cowering and trying to cover up my once-again stinging face. I didn’t understand. Was he still punishing me for what had happened at the bar? If so, then why had he healed me in the first place?

“I’m sorry.” I lifted my head once more, aware of the throbbing handprint bright against my cheek. “Master, I’m sorry, I love you.” Damon started to back away at my words, the mix of confusion and worry gracing his features slowly being replaced with fresh rage.

“Please, I want to make it up to you… please.” I stretched an arm out for him, but he stood up with a single, sharp movement so that he was out of reach, and turned to leave. I called out for him as he stalked away, hands balled up into angry fists, but he wouldn’t listen. Instead, I stumbled to my feet, having a little more strength, and followed after him. Just as he was about to reach the stairs, I gently caught his arm, trying to tug him back to me.

“Get off of me!” He pushed me again, nearly knocking the air out of me as I hit the nearby banister. By then, I was crying, more confused and hurt than before. I let out another squeak of an apology, telling him I’ll do anything, when suddenly he snapped. Before I could even blink Damon sped me against a wall, the impact of the wood paneling against my back making me wheeze for breath. He ripped what was left of the lacy dress I wore straight down the middle, and let the tattered halves fall discarded to the ground.

I knew I shouldn’t struggle, as I’d practically asked him to do something like this, for him to take out his anger on me, but I pushed lightly on his chest nonetheless, tiny little pleas slipping from my lips, so quiet that I wasn’t even sure if Damon himself could properly hear them.

I didn’t even see him get his jeans undone before he was inside me. Winded, I was unable to scream at the ripping pain I’d become so used to. He held me viciously by the throat, and pounded into me until I fell away into an unwilling fit of unconsciousness.


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise! I bet you guys didn’t expect another chapter this soon. :) Hope you guys enjoy it and thank you so much for the constant support. <3  
> Who's excited for tonight’s episode?? :D  
> P.S. Visaliagrl—you definitely guessed right at what was going on! ;)

When I was able to open my eyes again, I wasn’t sure how much time had passed. My best guess was a few hours at the most, according to the darkening sky I could glimpse at through the windows. At the sound of something smashing from upstairs, I jolted into a more clear consciousness, fully starting to register what had happened. From what little I could see of the boarding house from my spot on the floor, it was completely trashed. Furniture tipped over, books ripped and strewn, anything breakable beyond broken…

I tried to sit up to get a better look, but a sudden shock of white-hot pain between my thighs made me immediately freeze up. Damon hadn’t healed me again after I’d passed out, that much at least was very clear. I fell back against the wall, feeling suddenly overwhelmed. How much longer could I do this for? I felt a lump of sobs gather in my throat at the thought, and I squeezed my eyes tight enough so that I could pretend not to notice the tears that escaped them.

After a moment of sitting there all tensed up I realized I was holding my breath, the pain of the trapped air starting to stir up a sting in my chest. I tried to exhale slowly, but it came out as a rushed whoosh instead, shaping itself into more of an agonized cry. And with that one little whimper I knew it was too late to try and hold it in anymore. I slid the rest of the way down the wall, curling around myself on the floor and trying not to lie in the dried puddle of my own blood as I started to cry. Great, heaving sobs lifted from my chest and staggered off my lips, leaving me gasping for breath.

Everything was so muddled—my thoughts, my feelings, my reality. Was the pain even real anymore, or was I already dead and just suffering in some sort of endless hell? Maybe I’d died the night my parent’s car went off the bridge all those months ago and this was my eternal punishment for being the reason my parents drowned. I lifted my head off the floor, only to slam it back down hard enough so that a splay of blackness started to ebb at the edges of my vision. I hated this, I hated myself, I hated Damon…

My stomach heaved violently, and I let out a loud gag, though there wasn’t even enough stomach acid left in my body to throw up. All I needed to do was calm down; stop crying, stop thinking, stop everything. I loved Damon, and he was all I had—there was nothing else I needed to know. Anything else just meant bad nostalgia, and worse pain. The main concern I should concentrate on was Damon, not myself. There was something different about him, something off. I could still hear him from upstairs pacing, yelling, breaking things. If he hadn’t been off the rails before, he sure was now. It was probably my fault he was upset anyways. I hadn’t apologized enough, and I should feel guilty about it, that much I knew for sure.

I pushed myself up onto my elbows, blinking away any remaining moisture that threatened to run down my cheeks and preparing myself for the trek upstairs I knew I had to make.

It was difficult to even crawl, so instead I sort of half-dragged myself upstairs. I went slowly, one step at a time, testing out how much movement I could manage in my legs without hurting too much. I was a little over halfway up when Damon suddenly appeared in the hallway. He stopped mid-pace to look at me, eyebrows raised in genuine shock, as if he were surprised to see me alive, yet alone moving around.

“What do you think you’re doing?” He spoke quite slowly, as if he were trying hard to control the tone of his voice. Nonetheless, it shook, and the last word caught in his throat. He looked taken aback at the sound of his own voice, staggering away and starting to pace again. His eyes darted anywhere but my own, and he brought his hands up to his hair, pulling on it so hard I thought he might rip bunches off from his scalp.

“I’m sorry, Master… I love you.” I tried to make my voice sound completely genuine instead of robotic, shaping the phrase softly across my tongue. The words seemed to hit Damon like bullets, and he froze rigidly in place. Instinctively, I cringed and brought a hand up to shield myself in fear he was going to attack me or something, but instead he just turned towards me.

The look on his face was something totally new to me—an expression I never thought I’d see upon his features. He was completely open, vulnerable, helpless. His cold blue eyes were soft and wide like those of a child, and his lips were parted. Damon looked wholly broken, and I felt a pang of legitimate guilt. Had I done this to him?

He dropped to his knees, defeated, and his head hung low enough to completely hide any more expression. The sounds he was making were completely animalistic—sharp, tottering breaths, pained hisses and growls. Entranced, I crawled the rest of the way to him, and up close realized that Damon himself was weeping. Short, suppressed sobs echoed from his crumpled form, and a mix of indistinguishable words pattered from his blubbering lips. He’d never shown this type of weakness in my presence—in fact Stefan had said he had no emotions at all. Hell, even Damon himself admitted that he felt absolutely nothing. So what had changed?

I reached out to him, but before my hand could make contact with his own, the moment was over. Damon stood abruptly, face void of the tears I had seen running down it seconds before, expression empty of any sort of emotion. Without looking down at me he kicked me out of his way and made a direct beeline for his bedroom.

Recovering quickly, I moved to crawl after him, but the door slammed long before I could get there. I forced myself the rest of the way there anyways, and sat down in front of the closed slab of wood, waiting.

* * *

        

I woke up to falling. I didn’t remember drifting off, but I must have, at some point, fallen asleep against the door. I landed face-first onto a pair of leather shoes, quickly realizing that they belonged to Damon, who has just opened the door himself. I scrambled to get myself into a sitting position, fearful that he was going to try and slap me or shove me away again. When he bent down towards me though, he plucked me off of the ground instead, and held me tight against his chest.

Up close, I could see that he’d cleaned himself up. His hair was still slightly damp from a shower, and he had on a different change of clothes. I smiled weakly, letting my head nuzzle safely against his chest. I wanted to close my eyes again and sleep some more, as I felt so safe when he treated me so gently. Before I could get too comfortable though, Damon had whisked the both of us downstairs and into the kitchen.

He sat my frail body on the edge of the counter, and the cold feel of granite against my bare skin made me all the more want to crawl back into his arms. I watched as he immediately rolled up the sleeves of his shirt, and bit deeply into his wrist. He nestled the bleeding wound close to my mouth, and I parted my lips wide enough to will a steady stream to drip down my throat and settle into my bloodstream. I felt instantly better than before, and lifted my head high enough to meet his oddly-gentle gaze.

“Thank you, Mas—” Damon put a finger to my lips, immediately shushing my gratitude. I sat in silence as he pulled away, and started to a cupboard across the kitchen. I watched him pull a cup from the cabinet, and fill it with tap water before presenting it to me.

The glass was heavy in my hands, but I shakily brought it to my lips nonetheless, taking the tiniest of sips. Damon stood close to me, watching as I drank a little more before, seemingly satisfied at my progress, turning and starting towards the fridge. He opened it to reveal nothing but a few half-empty blood bags, and slammed it back shut, deciding to try the cupboards again instead. It took a few tries, but eventually he found a cabinet that held a box of bland-looking cereal.

The thought of food, after so much time without it, made me feel overly nauseous. I was even a little scared to try and eat some. Damon approached me with the box despite my fears, taking the glass of water from my hand and shaking out a couple pieces of cereal into my palm instead. My stomach was already churning from the tiny amount of water I’d consumed, so I knew that solid food wouldn’t be the best idea, but Damon’s insistent expression made me drop the cereal onto my tongue anyways.

I had barely even started chewing when my body involuntarily jerked forward, throwing up what little liquid I had just gotten into it, and washing away the cereal along with it. The vomit sputtered into my bare lap, the rest hanging in strings off my chin. That, combined with the screaming pain coming from my insides, made a pathetic little cry climb its way from my throat, leaving me to be nothing more than a trembling mess on the countertop. I gazed up through my lashes to meet Damon’s eyes, wanting to ask him for some sort of help, when I suddenly noticed something I’d been oblivious to before: He wasn’t as put together as I thought. His damp hair wasn’t from a shower, it was from sweat, and a sheen of the stuff swept against his forehead and down his cheeks, making his face glisten in the dim kitchen light. He didn’t look at all like his normal collected self, but instead he seemed half-crazed. He looked absolutely disgusted, but the revulsion was seemingly less directed at me and more at himself. He wouldn’t meet my eyes, and the glass of water that rested in his fist suddenly shattered, the remaining content splashing to the floor.

He ripped open his arm again, more violently this time, and pressed it hard against my lips. Confused, I drank more of his blood, thankful that it was at least one thing that wouldn’t make me throw up. His expression was intense, and he remained silent as he watched me swallow from the puncture wounds in his wrist. He didn’t move away until he seemed satisfied that I’d drank enough, and before I knew it I was back in his arms. Having apparently had enough of the kitchen, Damon carried me back upstairs and into his ensuite bathroom.

I was set carefully down onto the tile floor, and Damon started running me a bath in his enormous tub. I took it upon myself to attempt to stand up, and found that the action had become so much more easy with the dense amount of vampire blood I had swimming through my system. I approached the full length mirror in front of me, and though it definitely went against my better judgement, looked into it.

Since I could look down at myself whenever I felt the need I already had a pretty good grasp on what my body looked like. Scarred and skeletal and a perfect picture of everything I didn’t want to be. But my face… that was the one thing I hadn’t really wanted to see in such a state. I caught my own eyes in the mirror—once a radiant sort of golden brown now reduced to two dark pits, looking much too big and round for the rest of my emaciated skull. Everything was sunken and small, and pulled so tight against my bones that I was surprised it didn’t hurt. Even the color of my skin had changed from a natural tan into a sickly sort of pale yellow. I didn’t look like a girl; I didn’t even look like a human. I was a monster; Something conjured up from my very own nightmares. Maybe I really was in hell.

Damon came up from behind me, and I gratefully let my gaze settle on his form instead. He set a hand on my shoulder, and led me away from my reflection with the gentlest of motions. His hand stooped down from my shoulder, and ran the length of my arm, probably feeling every little bump and dent of my hundreds of scars. Urgently, he reopened the now-familiar place on his wrist, once again urged me to drink more. I wanted to refuse, but his grip was tight, and I knew I didn’t really have a choice.

“Thank you.” I managed to muster up the words once he’d finally pulled away from me, but they only seemed to frustrate him more.

“Stop… saying… that.” He spoke stiffly through his teeth, and drew away from me completely, having to turn his back on me to seemingly regain his composure. Though the words were almost silent, I caught him cursing quietly to himself. He took a few deep, shaky breaths, before bracing himself and facing me once more. He was still breathing hard when he brought me into his arms again, but quickly steadied himself as he moved to put me in the bath.

Thankfully the water was neither scalding hot nor cold, but somewhere in the perfect middle. I hadn’t realized how totally disgusting I felt until I was able to sink down into the bubbles and water and feel all the grime start to peel away. Damon knelt down on the tile outside of the tub, making no indication that he was going to remove his clothes and join me like he normally would. Instead, he poured a generous heap of shampoo into his palms, and started to work what was left of my thinning hair into a lather.

The feel of his gentle touch on my head felt a thousand times better than I could ever imagine it would, and I let my eyes close. I kept them shut, bobbing in and out of a lazy sort of sleep as I felt Damon rinse off my hair and start to scrub clean the rest of my body with a light soap and a washcloth. I opened my eyes back up only when I heard him call my name, rousing me from my nap. Looking around, I realized the water was disappearing from the bathtub, washing blood and dirt and other filths down the drain with masses of nice smelling soap.

I let Damon pull me from the bath, and stayed seated on the edge as he reached to retrieve a towel from the nearby counter. I cooperated fully when he started to dry me off, lifting up my arms and legs for him in turn. Upon finishing, he wrapped me up in the towel and lifted me once again into his arms for the short trek into his bedroom. I wanted to tell him that I was able to walk on my own, but I held my tongue as I truthfully didn’t mind him babying me.

He put me down on the edge of the bed, and made his way across the room to his dresser, pulling out a baggy-looking t-shirt. Approaching me once more Damon took away the towel and helped pull the shirt over my head, letting it settle like a dress around my slight figure. He fixed up my hair for me, pulling it from the collar of the shirt and running his fingers through it a couple times to remove any lingering tangles he hadn’t already scrubbed through in the bathtub.

 “Lie down.” Damon motioned to the bed with a slight tilt of his chin, and I immediately scooted myself back from the edge, curling up against one of the pillows. I thought I new what he was referring to with the command, so I didn’t waste any time at trying to remove the shirt he’d just put on me. As I pulled it back over my head, I felt him suddenly slap my hand with enough force to leave a sharp sting. He yanked the shirt back down so it covered me up once more, looking more angry than anything else.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” He pushed me down, a little harsher than he needed to, and jerked the blankets up and over me with such violence that I thought he was going to tear them in half. I felt waves of shame, my cheeks stained red with some sort of confused embarrassment. Whenever he let me into his bed he would make me do just about anything other than sleep, so why the sudden change of heart? I felt his weight give away from the mattress as he stood, and that was enough to make me let out a whimper. I didn’t understand—if he was angry why wasn’t he just taking it out on me? He always took it out on me, and he told me to appreciate that because his violence was how he showed me affection. I could feel myself shaking from under the covers, and I smothered my face in the pillows to drown out the sad little noises that escaped from my throat.

“Stop it! Just _shut up!_ ” The sound of his yell froze my tears in their tracks, and I had to bite my cheeks hard enough to draw blood in order to stop myself from letting out another cry. There was a pause, a lull of crackling silence, before Damon finally let out a long, shaky breath. I felt him get back on the bed beside me, and I squeezed my eyes shut tight as he slid his hands around my waist and pulled me close into his body. His face nuzzled into the back of my head, his sharp, unsteady breaths tickling the hairs on my neck.

“Sshh, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” It took me a moment to realize he’d spoken at all, for the apology was so tiny and sad. I was stunned, and more confused than I think I’d ever been in my life. In the silence of the room, I listened as Damon’s breathing slowed down to a sleep-filled pace, and closed my eyes as I drifted off into my own dreams.


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey again, dolls! I’m honestly so, so sorry that it took such a long time to release this next chapter. I’ve been dealing with a lot of really bad health problems lately that have kept me busy, paired with working full time, so I haven’t had any time or motivation to write. Thank you so much to everyone for your support though, and for sticking with me through the writing process of this. This isn’t the last chapter, but we are nearing the end of this story quite soon. :)

I came flying from my nightmare with a gasp, my entire body shaking from the already-fading scenes my subconscious had so graciously handcrafted for me. Sitting up slowly I realized I was drenched in sweat and had viciously kicked the covers off of me. During my sleep the shirt Damon lent me had ridden up quite a bit, and I tugged it back down to just above my knees. The act almost made me laugh, as I hadn’t really a need for modesty after I’d been practically living naked for months on end, but it felt normal to try and cover myself; it felt right.   
I surveyed my eyes around the room, having noticed that Damon’s arms were no longer tucked in a hug around me. My gaze landed on his long-gone-cold spot on the mattress next to me, and I swiped a palm over the place where he had been laying. I was still confused towards my master’s behaviour, and a little frightened. He seemed overly emotional—nearly psychotic—and I was afraid that he could snap at any moment and lash out more brutally than he ever had before.   
Swinging my legs over the side of the bed, I came to realize that the scars covering my body seemed much more faded and slight than they had been just the night before, and I knew I probably had the gross amount of Damon’s magical vampire blood to thank for that. The little change in appearance did make me feel better though, and even if my happiness was nothing more than a tiny shred I accepted it with open arms. My toes touched the ground, and I planted my feet flat to gain balance before fully pushing myself into a standing position. I felt better too, that was for sure, but I was still overwhelmingly dizzy, and suffering from a headache that nearly made tears spring into my eyes, both probably symptoms of long-standing hunger and dehydration.  
I stepped into the box of sunlight the window reflected onto the floor, basking in its warmth for only a moment before I started for the door. To be completely honest I could’ve done with a few more hours curled up in bed, especially after my spurt of bad dreams, but I was more than a little curious at Damon’s whereabouts, and I wanted to know why he was acting the way he was acting.  
The bedroom door creaked when I pushed it open, the ominous sound echoing through the hallway ahead and disappearing down the stairs. I stepped out, and immediately stopped in my tracks. The whole hallway, from what I could see, was spotless. No signs of smashed picture frames and vases, no tipped-over furniture. The wood floors and paneled walls were shining, and the whole house was giving off a nauseatingly strong scent of bleach and cleaner. As I ventured further through down the hall I tried to breathe through the sleeve of the t-shirt, genuinely worried that, combined with my present dizziness, the smell of cleaner was going to make me pass out.  
Following the path downstairs, I realized that the rest of the boarding house was in the same condition as upstairs, looking more pristine and tidy than it had been since my arrival so many months before. No trace of blood or gore or even dust, and especially no trashed furniture or artifacts; everything was in its rightful place. Either Damon had woken up at the crack of dawn to get this done, or he’d hired an entire band of maids.   
I jumped at a sound down the hallway, my body tensing up as I turned towards it. I padded down the corridor towards the source of the noise, turning into the kitchen to find Damon. He looked even worse than he had the night before—disheveled. His hair was a crow’s nest around his head, like some sort of black, messy halo. He had dark circles under his eyes, and a pained expression on his face. He was poised in front of one of the kitchen counters, sleeves sloppily rolled up, as he chopped up what looked to be a watermelon into bite-sized chunks.   
Upon apparently noticing my presence, he stopped what he was doing and turned around to greet me, his features smoothing over into something more collected and suppressed. He motioned sharply to the kitchen table with a toss of his chin, and I immediately wove my way over to have a seat on one of the large, wooden chairs. Damon didn’t speak as he picked a few pieces of the watermelon to set on a plate, retrieving a glass of water from the fridge before presenting the small meal in front of me. He pushed the cup close to me before taking a seat opposite of my small frame, sitting back rigidly in his chair.  
“Fruit will be easier to eat. Start with the water though, and don’t push yourself.” I reached for the glass, picking it up with both hands before shakily bringing it to my lips. Although the liquid felt nice against my tongue, it hurt to swallow and sparked up even more pain once it trickled down into my stomach. I immediately wanted to bend over and retch, but I forced myself to take deep breaths instead, and close my eyes. Damon stretched a hand across the table, running his fingers gently, comfortingly, over my arm, and that gesture gave me enough strength to take another tiny sip.   
He sat there with me for over an hour, patient and supportive, and I finally managed to finish the contents of the entire glass. I felt guilty that I couldn’t have gone any faster, but Damon seemed unfazed by it, more encouraging and worried than anything. After every drink I took I felt more nauseous than the last, and had to take long pauses where I just closed my eyes and sat still. But, finally, the cup was empty, and even though I probably felt worse than before I’d started, I was proud of myself.   
I sat with my eyes closed, basking in the slight silence of the room and concentrating on not getting sick. The scrape of a chair jolted me back into full consciousness though, and I watched Damon stand and make his way back to the kitchen counter to retrieve the small plate of watermelon. My muscles tensed up, and my stomach lurched when he brought it back, setting it on the table in front of me. Hadn’t I done enough for today? I didn’t think I had any more energy or drive in me to finish even a fraction of the fruit, as the water had been trial enough. I was scared of throwing up again, scared to confirm that my body was unequivocally rejecting food and water, scared to confirm that I was on a quick road towards death.  
“Try to eat at least a piece, Elena.” I cringed at the sound of my name, once something warm and familiar, and now just a word associated with suffering and self-hatred. The fear of a punishment if I disobeyed him is what led me to reluctantly pluck a clean-cut cube off the plate. I wove it absently between my fingers, trying to muster up some courage to actually get it to my mouth. My breath became shaky with impending tears, the sound quite evident even though I tried to suppress it. I didn’t want to vomit, I’d rather Damon do what he wanted to me than to get sick again.  
“Please, Elena. You need food.” I brought my legs up onto the chair, burying my face in my knees as to avoid his gaze, and covering my ears with my hands so I could block out his words. Although I was doing my best to plug my ears, I still managed to hear Damon let out a grunt of frustration. In less time than humanly possible I felt his body poised beside me. The calm demeanour he’d been cloaked in vanished, and he lashed out, grabbing me by the wrists and ripping my hands away from their protective cover over my ears. I tried to keep my eyes closed, but he suddenly started to shake me, and the pain of my neck cracking forward sent them shooting open. The unexpectedly violent movement didn’t help with my nausea either, and I felt the small amount of water I drank sputter from my lips, running down my chin and dampening the oversized shirt hanging from my skeletal form.   
It was a combination of fear and dread that made me start audibly weeping, my sobs choking out through strings of bile that dripped from my mouth. Damon was off of me faster than he’d come on to me, across the room and pressed against the kitchen cupboards before I could blink. He was panting, knuckles white with strain as he gripped onto the counter behind him, and eyebrows knit together in a sort of broken expression. He roughly ran a hand through his hair, pulling out a chunk of the black locks. His hand shook as he looked down at it, unsteadily opening up his fist to let the strands of hair trickle to the floor.   
Devoid of so much as a word, he turned and disappeared from the room. I heard the front door slam and with that he was gone and I was greeted once more with an eerie, buzzing silence. I felt weak, my body strained way past the point of being able to handle itself. Without really meaning to my body fell from the chair, hitting the floor at a painful angle. My vision stretched into some sort of black tunnel, and although I tried to reach out an arm in an attempt to drag myself forward, I was unconscious before I could even move.


End file.
